


Revenant

by hornblowerfic_archivist



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Horror, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-21
Updated: 2009-07-21
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:54:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6119976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hornblowerfic_archivist/pseuds/hornblowerfic_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While staying with Archie Kennedy's in-laws in a remote and ancient county in Ireland, both Horatio and his best friend, whilst courting their lady loves, are going to find out exactly why the locals fear the darkness on Allhallows Eve as legend becomes a very real menace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Hornblowerfic.com](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Hornblowerfic.com). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in January 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [Hornblowerfic.com collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hornblowerfic/profile).

  
_Revenant: rev·e·nant_

_n._

_1\. One that returns after a lengthy absence._  
_2\. One who returns after death._

Lieutenant Archie Kennedy hid the mischievous twinkle in his sapphire eyes by pulling the wide brim of his hat down over his brow but could not conceal the wide grin that stretched across his jovial mouth, bearing the dazzling white of his teeth. He leaned back against the side of the carriage, propping his boots up on the bale of hay opposite where he was sat. Through a half-lidded gaze he regarded his comrade and greatest friend, settled awkwardly, long limbs skewed and akimbo among the bundles of packed straw.

Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower covered his somewhat largish, rather sore looking nose with his hankie and gave a great sputtering sneeze. He glared forbiddingly at Archie through red-rimmed eyes. It was a reasonably short walk from the village to Curraghgowen estate, where the two were currently in residence as warmly welcomed guests, and Horatio would have preferred it to the simple horse cart they were traversing in over the rough, bumpy back lanes of the countryside. But Archie had been adamant on accepting when the amiable farmer had offered them a ride, if not for their own good, for that of their companion’s.

Miss Katherine Cassaday was the youngest daughter of their host Colonel Bertram Cassaday and his lady wife Virginia, seventeen years of age and in delicate health since the fever that had swept through the peaceable hamlet five years earlier. She sat beside their driver, her slender, freckled face turned pleasantly towards the thin autumnal daylight, her pale blonde tresses bouncing merrily, pleasantly sans chaperone by happenstance. Every now and again, her small, gloved hand went to the top of her straw bonnet in pretense of preventing the wind from blowing it back, but in truth she was stealing clandestine glances rearward to where Horatio was sitting, her wide mouth curving up coquettishly at the corners.

In her lap she held a fat yellow American pumpkin, cradling it protectively so that, on her return home, she and her little brother Bram may gut and carve it into a big smiling jack-o’-lantern. Three more gourds sat beside Archie in the bed of the cart and she insisted on stopping the carriage when she espied another desirable candidate in a lush, sunny patch off the side of the narrow road.

“I just got comfortable,” complained Archie, eyeing them slyly as Horatio helped Miss Katie down from her roost.

“We’ll only be a moment!” Katie promised, calling back towards the cart as her slippered feet skipped over the grassy embankment onto the field. “Ooh, look,” she exclaimed, pointing to the ragged figure of a nearby scarecrow, taking care to step over the twisting green vines as she lifted her skirts. “That’s one of grandfather’s best wigs!” she laughed at the curled white hairpiece perched atop the straw man’s head.

Horatio, his spirits suddenly and drastically improved as he strolled behind her, grinned as well. Unlike those in and around the cities, the pranks and high spirited shenanigans of the local youth on the mischief nights leading into Hallowmas were nothing more than amusing and harmless hijinks. He greatly suspected that young Master Bram himself had had a hand in this particular jape.

Horatio glanced quickly over his shoulder to ensure that the cart was now far enough away that neither the farmer nor Archie could be witness to their actions.

“Miss Katie, if you please, I think I’ve found the perfect one,” he cleared his throat loudly, grasping her arm and pulling her to him as he ducked behind the scarecrow. “Right over here,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to hers fervently.  
She was lean but soft, bending yieldingly at his gentle urging, leaning so sweetly into him, arching her back against his arm which was covetously wrapped about her waist.

He cupped her jaw in the curve of his large palm, his fingertips toying with the silken wisps of hair curling along her neck as his lips slowly savored hers, tasting her honeyed lushness. Oh, how he would enjoy truly sampling such nectarous confections her body would offer him, those secret, hidden, hitherto unexplored places; his long fingers, his tongue, ached to delve into such paradises, not to mention the throbbing ache in his groin, the hungry yearning of his swelling...

Right, he thought attempting to shift his hips and the press of his raging cockstand away from the press of her belly, best to avoid fancies involving the admittedly blissful deflowering of his gracious host’s daughter, no matter the sincerity of his amorous intentions towards her. Two weeks, two marvelous weeks of stolen kisses in shadowy corners, carrying on in cupboards and the like; Horatio was certain that Archie knew but was far too tactful to say anything.

It was hard to imagine that their leave would be ending soon and it’d be back to sea for the both of them; he’d be just another sailor receiving scented notes regularly for the first few months, less so once his absence became more tedious than romantic and infatuation wore thin.

But he knew that Katie wasn’t that sort of girl--she wasn’t flighty or coy--and that was partially why Horatio had fallen for her. She was clever--too clever by half as her own father was always fond of saying with a wink--and she was well accustomed to life among the officers of His Royal Majesty’s armed forces. Her mother was the daughter of a respected rear admiral, while her eldest brother was himself an esteemed naval officer; and two of her sisters had married into the service, the younger of which had recently become Mrs. James Kennedy.

And, of course, there had been Declan Cassaday, a capable seamen and loving brother, only seventeen months Katie’s senior and six months past laid to rest in the family mausoleum, killed in a tragic shipboard accident; his affianced, Fiona, resided with the family now but in Horatio’s opinion, as unfortunate as it was, she was no longer a rational woman and would never recover from the loss.

Such morbid and sobering thoughts to be having on such a lovely day, he deemed, and in such circumstances as being in the tender embrace of one’s sweetheart, but perhaps the distraction was a welcomed one considering the heat rising within his young, very attentive and eager body. Though it was Katie who finally pulled away, a flush like the bloom of roses coloring her usually wan cheeks, nibbling at the corner of her wide mouth.

She suppressed a delightful little shudder as she placed her hand upon his chest and pushed him to arm’s length. Her limbs were all aquiver with a carnal thrill, the place betwixt her thighs sultry and slick with her aroused wetness while the rosy tips of her breasts chafed at the lightest breeze, as sensitized and longing for his touch as they were. The mere thought of his full, sensuous lips there upon each one sent a fresh surge of molten stickiness washing over her responsively pulsing flesh.

“It doesn’t take all this time to pluck a pumpkin,” she teased with a smile, batting her eyelashes in an exaggeratedly flirtatious manner, “but it’s been more than long enough to pluck something else, so I think we ought to get back before suspicion and rumor run wild. Grab that one there,” she pointed, “so it at least appears our intentions were innocent.” She winked.

‘Too clever by half,’ mused Horatio.

Leaning over, arm outstretched to reach for the pumpkin, he nearly jumped clear out of his boots when, out of nowhere, a small, frail hand grabbed at his wrist and, with surprising power, twisted it back. He looked in up, shocked, into the rheumy eyes of a feeble old woman, her stare an almost completely milky white, her teeth all but missing as she clung to the shawl that was draped across her bony shoulders; had she been here only a moment before? She began to babble incomprehensibly but insistently, clutching his arm with a grip that betrayed the strength of her aged body.

“I--I’m sorry,” he stuttered, still taken aback by her sudden appearance, “I--I don’t understand you.” He looked desperately to find Katie. “What does she say?”

“She speaks in Gaeilge, Horatio,” Katie informed him as she pulled a few coins from the reticule fastened ‘round her wrist and pressed them into the old woman’s shaking hand. “Old Irish. Calm now, old mother,” she said soothingly, recovering an Irish accent Horatio had to strain to recall having ever heard her use previously; Katie had lived three years in America and spoke with the shrill blandness that, to Horatio’s ears, had become practice in the former colonies. Not that he found Katie’s voice in any way irritating, much the opposite as a matter of fact; it was perhaps the most mellifluous of sounds he had ever heard, especially when she sighed his name into his ear. He’d no idea she spoke Irish; it somehow seemed...beneath her, despite her habitual American inflection.

Gently, she closed the old woman’s fingers over her palm and the money she’d just given her. The biddy was eyeing her sharply, a slight sneer on her ragged mouth; she snapped something in Irish and hobbled away, leaving Katie looking rather unsettled.

“Come,” she said briskly to Horatio, “it’s getting late.”

“Took you long enough,” Archie commented in what he thought sounded like a gruff fashion, though it was far too sly a remark to be taken as such. With a bit of a scowl, Horatio hefted the pumpkin he was carrying into the cart, aiming at his friend. Archie let out a loud ‘oof!’ as the heavy gourd landed right in his lap. “It’s a good one,” he said, his voice strained as he rolled it onto the cart floor and adjusted his pant leg near the crotch. “Heavy.”

“But what did she say?” Horatio inquired persistently lending Katie his hand as she climbed up beside the driver once more. Whatever that vile old crone had told him had plainly troubled her, and Horatio was feeling rather helpless over the whole thing, as well as a bit pettish over his powerlessness to take control and make it right.

“It was nothing,” she tried to laugh lightly and dismissively but he could hear the tension behind the sound. “A silly local legend about Allhallows Eve, that’s all; a rhyme that the provincials repeat ‘round this time of year. Superstitious folderol.”

“Was a beggar bothering you, miss?” the farmer at the reins asked, concerned. “All sorts of vagrants,” he called towards the rear of the cart where Horatio had uncomfortably seated himself once again, urging his horse back into a steady trot, “They ramble into the village looking for charity from good ladies like Miss Katherine here and her kin--iffin I may say, miss. They’re scared the bogles’ll get ‘em, I reckon. Ignorant peasant folk, says I.”

Horatio raised an eyebrow. “You’re in the land of the Kells now, ‘Ratio,” Archie chuckled jovially. “You see at Hallowmas, so the ancients believed, the veil between this life and the next was lifted and it is said in this haunted land that the dead return to the earth for one night out of the year, and they roam the countryside snatching up any unsuspecting mortals they happen upon, carrying them off to their hellish underworld.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Horatio saw the farmer cross himself and thought to himself dryly, ‘Ignorant peasant folk, eh?’

“They leave offerings for the dead, hoping to divert their evil intentions, and light bonfires in the fields to ward them off.”

“Archibald Kennedy,” Katie berated, “I’d have thought you would know better than to repeat such stuff and nonsense!”

“And do you not observe the very traditions that are said to keep the dead at bay this night?” Archie grinned mischievously. “Are you sure it’s not just taboo that makes the topic a distressing one? It’s said that you can draw the notice of the dead with only a mention or a thought...”

“Stuff and nonsense,” repeated Katie stubbornly but there was something in her nature that set the hairs along Horatio’s arms on edge. Was she...affrighted by their discussion? Certainly, in the short time he’d known her, Horatio had never observed her to be unnecessarily palled. “We celebrate the bountiful harvest home and the festivities of an American Hallowe’en--that is all.” Her jaw tightened as she said the last bit and her arms were crossed uneasily across her chest. “Those stories, they are part of our heritage and nothing more.”

“And is this to do with that local legend of yours?” Horatio asked perceptively and was rewarded with the startled straightening of Katie’s back. “The one the beggar was talking of, has it to do with the tales and beliefs of your people?”

Katie was silent for a moment, no more flirtatious glances backwards as she sat perfectly still save for the bouncing of the carriage. “’Extinguish thee not the candle’s light, before the eleventh chime sounds at the hour of midnight; Quench thee not the glow in the window there, and if thou dost go forward with care; For the darkness calls them into sight, in the blackest hour they come, the dead of night,’” recited Katie. She took a deep breath when she had finished. “That is what she said to you, or thereabouts; that is of course a loose translation papa taught me, but a common verse nonetheless.”

Horatio’s eyes strayed to the gloomful looming shape of the old stone Curraghgowen mausoleum and felt a chill roll up his spine. He shook the feeling off, snorting derisively at his own gullibility; tales like those being told, they were meant to set the listener with a feeling of disquiet.

“Is it true?” he asked with rather more than a bit of smug condescension, and that did earn him a glare from Katie, though it was not like the soft, amorous ones he’d experienced before but a hardened and haughtily annoyed thing.

“Of course it’s not true,” she scoffed and she looked away quickly, but not before Horatio could recognize in her stare something he had not expected: a flash of terror.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The stately manor house at Curraghgowen was decked in the festive decoration of the season, the rusted colors of the crumbling leaves and the deep yellows of jack-o’-lanterns and the flickering candles placed within their hollowed and carved shells. Servants bustled to and fro, shooting each other harried glances as they passed in the halls, Archie’s sister-in-law, Irene, playing stern overseer. There was no doubt about it, she had command; what Horatio wouldn’t have given to have seen her shouting orders to and whipping into shape the crew of a ship of the line. James had been sequestered into service and was looking absolutely miserable; his hopes visibly rose for a moment when he saw his brother and Horatio enter the hall, and fell once more when Archie wisely dodged from sight.

“She’ll have you scrubbing the floors before you even realize you’ve said hello,” Archie informed Horatio as they ducked and wove their way into a narrow hallway and the out-of-the-way sitting room at the end. “The woman’s a tyrant, I’m telling you; Boney would take one look at her on a battlefield and turn in the opposite direction,” he explained as the both of them gazed out the door, checking to see they hadn’t been spotted. “Lord knows what James saw in her unless he’s been lusting in secret for his commanding officer. In truth, the entire female side of the family frightens the hell out of me.”

“Some of them aren’t so regretful,” Horatio mumbled sullenly. “You didn’t have to beleaguer Miss Katherine so,” he said evenly, feigning only a casual interest. “The subject was obviously a vexing one, and you couldn’t help but tease.”

Archie clapped his friend on the back, laughing, “’Ratio, you’re the enigmatic workings of your creatively strategic mind will carry you far, but when it comes to romantic notions you are painfully transparent.” They turned together to face the interior of the room and Archie let out a low whistle through his teeth at the sight they beheld. “’Ratio, I think we may have just strayed into some otherworldly place. Make no sudden move; we know not if its inhabitants be friend or foe.”

The cozy parlor was adorned with the largest gathering of jack-o’-lanterns either of them had ever laid eyes upon; grinning, grimacing, glowering, they seemed to spill from the walls in disorderly mounds, their empty eyes regarding them with menacing or mischievous curiosity. Streamers of autumn leaves were draped about the crown molding while platters of nuts and apples sat upon every table surface. Eleven-year-old Bram looked up at them from the hearthrug where he was seated, cross-legged, relieving a pumpkin of its slimy internals; he rolled his eyes.

“Uncle Archie,” he sighed impatiently, shaking his head despairingly, “I’m not a child anymore, you needn’t play such games.”

“And you oughtn’t repeat every silly thing your sisters tell you. So very solemn,” Archie chuckled, stubbing the tip of the boy’s nose with his finger, eliciting a grin from Bram despite his grave manner. “You remind me of someone else I know,” he raised an artful eyebrow as he looked to Horatio out of the corners of his eyes who glowered in return. “So tell me, Master Bram, have you been banished or are you hiding?”

“A bit of both, I suppose,” answered the boy with a morbid cheerfulness. “Irene told me I could make all of these,” he gestured towards the tumble of jack-o’-lanterns, “if I stayed out of the way and kept them from her sight. She said they gave her the creeping willies.” He shrugged, unconcerned. “She is a despot, as you yourself just observed.”

Bram’s frankness was unparalleled and it made Horatio nervous, as if the boy was going to look right into his eyes and suddenly know everything he’d been thinking about Katie; he slowly edged away from where Bram was seated to stare out the window.

“You heard that, eh?” asked Archie dryly, giving his nose another fond flick.

“I hear a lot of things,” pronounced Bram with a prideful sniff. “That’s rather the good thing about often being overlooked.” As the youngest son of a lord, Archie knew the feeling well. “I wish you’d married one of my sisters, Uncle Archie; James is all right but he is a bit wet,” he wrinkled his nose. “They argue quite a bit, and Irene almost always ends up having her way. I ask you, is that any way for a man to conduct himself?” he shook his head with a sigh.

“He’s used to taking orders,” Archie reminded him with a smile.

“True,” said Bram fairly. “I’d still prefer having you as a brother. Not that I’d expect you to marry Irene, mind, and Janine’s gone and gotten herself married as well, the silly girl. There’s always Sissy,” as was Bram’s pet name for his sister, “I suppose,” he brightened and Horatio gave a loud cough.

“I think Katie’s got herself another admirer,” said Archie, laying his finger alongside his nose knowingly and winking.

“Really?” Bram blinked, as if this was news to him. “It’s not some cretin from the village, is it? Only she does like to dally with the young men ‘round these parts--harmlessly, mind. I heard Rafe once say that she wasn’t a prickteaser or anything...”

Archie suppressed a sudden chortle and Horatio cleared his throat loudly, very, very eager to change the topic of discussion; Bram had known exactly what it had meant, what he had said, but was having difficulty understanding exactly what was funny about it.

“Why do you need so many?” Horatio inquired, taking a seat and picking up one of the jack-o’-lanterns, lifting it to eye level so he could regard the fellow eye to eye.

“Alas, poor Yorick,” joked Archie, watching his friend.

“For guidance, of course,” Bram responded a bit peevishly, as if the answer had been so painfully obvious, it had been beneath him even to utter it. “Haven’t you ever heard the story of Jack, who sat on his porch with a lantern to light the way for the spirits so they wouldn’t get lost in the darkest part of the night? I don’t want Declan to get lost, if he should be looking for us.”

There was an awkward silence for a stretch of time when even the usually playful Archie didn’t know exactly what to say.

“I’ve heard another story,” Horatio commented finally, and Archie was surprised to find quite a wicked glare in his friend’s dark brown eyes, the kind of maniacal gleam one got when telling ghost stories to children, “about Jack and his lantern. But it wasn’t about guidance; it was about protection. They say he got lost in the bog one night and came face to face with the Devil himself, who decided then to snatch up the man’s soul right there and then. But Jack was a bargaining man who fancied himself cleverer than Old Nick; he tricked him into a tree and trapped him by carving crosses into the bark, telling him he’d only set him free if he promised never to come for his soul again. The Devil was forced to acquiesce.

“Jack was a wicked man, a petty thief and a liar, and when was finally caught and hanged for his crimes, heaven would not take him and the Devil cunningly insisted on honoring their pact. He’d gotten what he wanted, he was immortal, but he belonged neither to this world nor the next and was left to wander alone in the darkness,” Horatio continued in an ominous voice and when he paused he could hear Bram gulping loudly. “And so he captured a will-o’-the-wisp in a turnip and used it as a lantern, warding off the shadows. You see, he could never rest again for he had paid a terrible price for attempting to outrun the Devil, but the rays of his lantern chased away the demons and spirits of the blackest night, like this night, Allhallows.”

Bram stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, and Horatio was suddenly alarmed that he might have truly terrified the boy. And then Bram’s face broke into one of the biggest grins Horatio had ever witnessed.

“That was brilliant!” he exclaimed. He looked past Horatio’s shoulder, towards the door and called out, “Did you hear that, Sissy? Lieutenant Hornblower just told the most magnificent scary tale!”

Horatio’s hear sank to the pit of his stomach when he heard the reply, hoping perhaps she hadn’t been standing there all this time, she hadn’t just listened in on him trying to instill in her younger brother an affright.

“Oh yes, I did hear indeed,” came Katie’s kittenish response. “Papa would tell me that one when I was young, when we used to carve turnips just like the story. Fi is heading to the mausoleum to light the candles on the steps; why don’t you run along and have help her, hmm?” she suggested, putting her hand on her brother’s shoulders and guiding him towards the door. “She could use a companion. Just make sure you’re back before dusk.”

“I don’t want to play nursemaid to Fiona,” grumbled Bram, shuffling his feet. “She’s been beastly to everyone for the past week, and barmier than normal.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Katie said in an undertone. “She’s very distraught. It’s as mama says, it takes time to heal such wounds. Just try and be nice to her this time, no putting toads where she’ll accidentally come across them, understand?”

Bram laughed in remembrance of his own prankish behavior and Katie shooing into the hallway him as he began to imitate Fiona’s surprised squeals.

“What do I do? Tell me what to do!” Horatio begged urgently under his breath of Archie as Katie was distracted by her younger brother, keeping his voice low so that she could not overhear.

“’Ratio, if you haven’t figured it out by now...” chuckled Archie.

“I know what to do!” he retorted sharply. “With girls, I mean; I have done it before, if you recall. But Katie’s no girl! Or rather she’s not that kind of girl, you understand my meaning,” he snapped when Archie grinned.

“You’ll figure it out,” Archie said brightly, encouragingly as he clapped Horatio on the back. “But if you want my advice,” lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “James told me of an empty cottage on the far end of the property where he and Irene sneaked off to during their courtship to share an intimate moment or two, if you catch my meaning. The moon is full and this is a night when devils and imps hold sway; let your imagination do the rest,” he advised roguishly. And with that, he slipped from the room on Bram’s heels, tipping an imaginary hat at Katie as he passed her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Archie was certain, as he stood in the center of the crowded ballroom amidst the boisterous merrymakers, that there must be at the very least four hundred and seventy-two members of the Cassaday clan, including aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and other assorted kin. Most were, to type, drinking rather heavily, which only served to improve their joviality, and some had brogues so thick that he believed even his uncle Hamish would strain to understand their words; the Scotch burr he was accustom to, but it seemed that the Irish one sounding like a bunch of lilting gibberish.

“What did he just say?” Archie asked his brother James in an undertone as the circle of revelers surrounding a red-faced old man with a shock of white hair and an amiable manner burst into raucous guffaws, some even clapping at what was obviously an amusing anecdote.

“Haven’t a clue!” James shrugged, chuckling. “Not sure anyone does. I find, from experience, it’s best when Eamon’s speaking to look interested, nod occasionally and then laugh when it’s clear he’s finished his tale.”

Archie’s attention was drawn away by a gaggle of giggling girls gathered ‘round the enormous marble fireplace farthest from the patio doors, its gaping maw large enough to swallow all of them at once; they knelt before the roaring blaze where the sunlight could not reach them, bathed in its warm glow while the flittering of the flame cast strange shadows upon their faces. They turned their faces to him and turned quickly back, whispering amongst themselves and tittering giddily; Archie was sure that, even within the ginger radiance of the firelight, he spotted quite a few cheeks flushed with a rosy effulgence. They held small blades in their hands and were passing between them a bowl of apples.

“And what is that mischievous set about then, hmm?” Archie inquired with a saucy twinkle to his eyes. He noticed that Bram sat on the fringes of the group, fussing with one of his many carved gourds, seemingly explaining its function in his typical pragmatic fashion to a serious-minded young woman crouching beside him. He recognized her immediately as Miss Fiona Wheaton, Declan Cassaday’s former fiancée; she was not joining in the games of the other misses and they in turn appeared to be unaware of her presence.

“Ah, a game of divination, if I’m not mistaken,” replied James with a grin. “They peel the apple, then throw the rind in the ashes; supposedly, it will spell out the initials of their future husbands, God help them.” He gave his brother a playful nudge in the ribs with his elbow. “I think quite a few of them are hoping to see the letters A.K. there on the hearth.”

Archie scoffed. “Well, at least show me the fraternal courtesy of forewarning me once my bride-to-be is revealed. I wouldn’t like to think I was the last to know,” he teased. He nodded towards Fiona and added more solemnly, “And what of her? Whose initials will she see?”

“I rather think that there’ll be no more initials for her, Archie,” James responded soberly. “Childish foretelling games are no longer of interest. Hell,” he swore, gritting his teeth as he gazed into the crowd, “here comes Irene. If she confronts you, remember, I’ve been helping with the decorations on the patio all afternoon.” And with that, he slipped away with a grace and stealth that Archie quite thought even the most demanding of commanding officers would be proud of.

Archie took a bracing breath and stepped forward, putting on his most dazzling of smiles. “I thought you and your friends had been exiled by the iron maiden,” he commented, placing his hand atop Bram’s head, pushing the boy’s neck back so his face was upturned to his.

Bram held up his jack-o’-lantern. “This one sneaked out,” he replied with a crooked grin. “He escaped Her Majesty’s tyranny. The others are still outcast but they’re safe, hiding in the parlor. I was just recounting to Fi the tale Lieutenant Hornblower told me earlier, about Jack and his lantern.”

Archie bowed then to Fiona, as if he’d only just noticed her presence. She wasn’t a pretty girl, not in a conventional sense, with too-chubby cheeks for her lean profile and her nose was a long, drastic slope that ended in a protruding tip. She was what was commonly known as ‘Black Irish.’ She had large brown eyes framed with thick, dark lashes and a full, pouting mouth with dusky lips shaped by a hint of an awkward overbite; straight brown hair framed her face and her slender, elongated neck. Archie couldn’t recall ever seeing her smile; that made him profoundly sad.

“Miss Wheaton,” he said formally.

“Lieutenant Kennedy,” she responded listlessly, her gaze darting anywhere but Archie’s face as she toyed with the paring knife in her hand. “Bram’s been looking after me,” she put her hand on the boy’s shoulder but quickly withdrew it as if she was uncomfortable with or unsure of the intimacy. “Keeping me company since his mum retired early. She’s feeling quite ill,” she explained when Archie made to inquire. “She just needs some rest; I think these festivities have been overtaxing her fragile constitution.”

Fragile constitution, Archie’s freckled arse. Lady Virginia Cassaday was of a wholly woebegone humor since the loss of her son, given to fits of weeping and days of withdrawal from the company of others, all save for Fiona. Fiona’s grief was forceful enough without the detrimental persuasion of Lady Ginny’s theatrical sorrow. Now that may have seemed callous of Archie to judge the situation so harshly, but his family had known its share of loss and he knew the difference between sorrow and overindulgence. Still, he bit his tongue.

“My commiserations,” he said stiffly. “I do hope the repose does her well.”

Bram pantomimed an exaggerated snore, bored to tears by the wistful woman’s companionship; the boy might have grown up quickly, and had an unusually keen intellect for his age, but there were just some things that he would not understand until he was older.

“Well, perhaps the lady will do me the honor of joining me for a dance?”

“I regret to say I do not dance, Lieutenant Kennedy,” she told him softly, “but I would not mind a bit of fresh air.”

“A walk then, perhaps?” he offered her his arm and she accepted. He winked at Bram; the boy pulled a face and Archie grinned inwardly, knowing that one day, when Bram had grown up a bit, he’d work it out. Right before they turned to walk away, Fiona let the apple she’d been paring fall from the clasp of her long fingers, the rind remaining in her palm after the naked fruit had bounced to the floor. She tossed the peel into the hearth ashes and did not linger to witness the results; whatever it may have been, the girls sat beside the fire reacted with a series of inscrutable shrieks and squeaks.


	2. Chapter 2

Horatio was certain he was in love with Katie. Well, relatively certain; that is, as certain as Horatio ever was about anything. This he knew for sure: When he thought on her, in his mind’s eye he saw the way her smile would wrinkle the corners of her bluish-brown eyes, how her nose scrunched up when she laughed her blonde tresses passed between his fingers like pale spun gold. If it was merely lust, would he not be thinking only of the plump curve of her breasts or the feel of her tongue against his. Not that he didn’t give such matters great consideration, for they were much on his mind, but if it was purely lecherousness, would he not think only on these things?  
  
He was content to just hold her hand as they strolled through the garden, the late afternoon sun darkening to a rich, hazy amber in the dazzling blue sky, the ghost of the full moon climbing the horizon. Sounds from the joyous celebration drifted to them on the breath of the chill breeze, music and chatting accompanied the thunderous sound of boot and slipper steps of the vigorous country dancing. Horatio was glad to avoid the crowd and especially the music; his tone deafness made him a poor partner on the dance floor and he was always anxious of embarrassing himself.  
  
Taking leisurely turns in the garden was more to his taste, and it was so lovely to take in the bracingly crisp autumnal breeze whilst basking in the fading golden glow of a waning sunlight. There was a spice to the gentle wind, he inhaled it as he breathed, could taste it on his tongue as he licked his lips; it was the tang of apples, damp leaves, cider and...something else. Burning tallow? Looking around him, he noticed for the first time the mind-boggling amount of candles being lit upon the steps of stone the patio, resting on benches and in the arches of the summerhouse. But most significantly he observed the round, stumpy tapers flickering in each ground floor window of the manor house, their fat flames shimmering against the panes of glass. It was very atmospheric and distinctly unsettling.  
  
The rhyme that Katie had spoken earlier came back to haunt him, and he couldn’t help but picture the flame of a single flittering candle fighting futilely against the encroaching blackness of night. “Young Bram believes that the light will help to guide Declan home,” he said without thinking. She made a rather noncommittal noise and the back of her throat. He knew he oughtn’t continue on the subject, that even a vaguely engrossing comment about the weather would be desirable, but he’d started down this path and it was difficult to steer himself clear of it. “Is that why you set the candles ablaze upon the steps of the mausoleum?”  
  
“A tradition,” shrugged Katie. “Tradition is rather important around here, as you might have noticed by now. It’s the time of year for remembrance; there are bonfires in the more provincial regions, and in the cities we gather at the churches and cathedrals to honor the dead. These are holy days,” she hesitated with a small sniff, “to people of my faith.” Ah, yes, the issue of religion; it had plagued his thoughts for many a night since he had first started contemplating courtship.  
  
What if he could find a Protestant minister that would marry them, would she, as her sister had done in order to join into matrimony with James Kennedy, renounce her Catholicism? Should he expect her to, and would he be able to make such a choice as he would ask her to do were he in her position? Such contemplation, at least, made him understand that his intentions toward her were of the most serious and sincere nature.  
  
Granted, in this wild country, he wouldn’t have been surprised if jumping over a broomstick was still a binding matrimonial contract, he mused smugly, and then thought the better of such opinions with a guilty little cough.  
  
They ducked into a nearby arched trellis that led to a shadier, more sequestered section of the garden when they spotted Archie and Fiona, the latter agitated, anxious; though they were too far away to overhear their conversation, Horatio could clearly read her body language, her fidgeting. Well, this was new to him, he thought as he watched Archie imploring her to...what? Could he truly have been so occupied with his wooing of Katie that he’d missed entirely something so obviously significant affecting his best friend? Horatio had made some fairly unflattering conjecture as to the stability of Fiona’s sanity in private; did or would Archie hold that against him?  
  
Fiona threw up her hands and marched away; Archie pursued.  
  
He should have been concerned but at the moment he was feeling rather more giddy than staid, intoxicated by a heady mixture of the scent of cinnamon in her hair and the young love which welled up within him. “Let’s away,” he murmured into her ear as he pulled her close, her small breasts pushing into his chest and up against the low neckline of her gown; the sight made him throb and ache in the most delightful manner and his mind was occupied with thoughts on how soft the modest mounds would be in his hands, how salty the puckered flesh of her nipple would taste in his mouth. “Somewhere far from prying eyes and wagging tongues, just you and I.”  
  
“Horatio, I am scandalized,” Katie teased him, her eyelashes fluttering down over her smoky, half-lidded gaze. “I think you’ve a bit of the wolf about you, and the rising of the full-of-the-moon is making you contemplate the most,” she licked her lips, her fingers toying with the buttons upon his jacket, “unspeakable acts.”  
  
“Oh yes?” Horatio breathed in the invigorating fragrance of her tresses, nuzzling the shell of her ear. “And, pray tell, my lady, what would you understand of such acts that you might claim to know that I consider them?”  
  
“Horatio,” she sighed, a devilish smirk playing at the corners of her wide mouth, “I have many wedded sisters.”  
  
“And are they all married to wolves?” he inquired, his voice barely a rumble in his chest; she felt it resonate as a rolling growl against her body as much as she heard the words he was speaking.  
  
“Not a one of them,” she informed him breathlessly. “Should I be very frightened?”  
  
“Come to my lair and we shall see, shan’t we?” he whispered tantalizingly. “The untenanted cottage on the farthermost border of the estate. The carousing will carry on far into the night; we won’t be missed.”  
  
He felt her bristle in his arms, the small of her back straight as a board against his large hand, and for a moment he was terrified he had taken it too far and that she would truly be offended by the suggestion. But when she pulled away, it wasn’t anger or indignation he saw in her eyes but a tense sort of trepidation.  
  
“But that cottage is very far from here,” she protested haltingly.  
  
“That would be the general idea,” he frowned. She hadn’t backed away from him, nor had she relinquished her grip on his sleeves, in fact she seemed to be clinging even more tightly to him.  
  
“We’d have to pass by the pond and,” she swallowed hard, “the mausoleum and memorial park.” She scowled at him when he laughed and accused her of being superstitious and afeared of a silly rustic legend. “I’m not!” she insisted. “It just seems a long way to walk in the dark.”  
  
“Then, like Jack,” Horatio grinned disarmingly, “we shall bring a lantern to illuminate our path and chase shadows away.” He raised her hand to his lips, gently pressing a hot kiss to her knuckles. “Do you not trust in me to protect you?”  
  
“It’s not that,” she asserted, looking reluctantly from the safe, inviting noise and glow of the manor house to the ever darkening grounds. “Mama has taken an ill turn; what if she should need me?” Horatio glared at her sideways, a look she found both intimidating and provoking; she knew he wasn’t falling for her feeble excuses for a moment. “Just you and I?” she asked, surrendering to the smoldering seduction in his enticingly intense coffee-colored eyes. “And you’ll,” she bit the corner of her lip coyly, “reveal to me the secrets of the unusual appetites the full moon stirs in a wolf?”  
  
By way of response, he playfully nipped the ball of her thumb and she giggled softly, nodding her assent. What could it hurt, truly? The candles were lit upon the stair of the mausoleum, bonfires dotted the rolling hillsides like far off beacons to guide any wanderers adrift in the hushed dusk, and the patio and windows of Curraghgowen were ablaze with a protective luminescence. She was a bit light in the head, a secret thrill running up her spine, one of danger, risk and rebelliousness, but above all of arousal.  
  
“Follow me,” she whispered in his ear and then flitted away, like an elusive specter floating on the breeze; she paused only to turn to him and crook her finger temptingly. When she was sure he was pursuing her, she took off again, the promise of pleasure awaiting them at the end of the hunt.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
“Archie,” Fiona said, her cheeks flushed, though by the cold or some perplexing emotion, he did not know, as she skipped down the small, uneven incline to the pond-side; he’d been more or less obliged to chase her as she fled from the closeness of his company in the secluded garden. She rounded on him as he followed, “I cannot do this any longer!” She squirmed as he took hold of her elbows in his strong hands, trying to twist herself from his grasp. “Please, do not ask me to! It’s not fair!”  
  
“Fair?!” he scoffed, pulling her close to him roughly. “Is it fair of them to expect you to remain in a continual state of mourning, to live a life of grateful, quiet chastity? Lady Cassaday uses guilt and shame to prevent your heart mending, moving forward.”  
  
“Lady Ginny took me in,” protested Fiona. “She looks after me, treats me as a daughter...”  
  
“She subjugates you!” Archie countered. “Uses you as her crutch so that she may keep close to her the thing that was dearest to her son when he died, and so she strives to keep you as you were and does not allow you to change or grow. You deserve more than that!”  
  
“I loved Declan with every inch of my being,” she sobbed, pounding her fists ineffectively against his solid chest. He grasped her wrists tightly though she still continued to struggle futilely. “The day I’d heard he had died, I would have gladly followed him; I wanted to, I tried to!” She twisted her wrists in his grip so that he could see the scars upon them, only just beginning to heal; like Fiona, he thought. “He was my heart, my soul, the very blood in my veins! I wanted to die for him but then I realized it wouldn’t do any good; instead I realized I would murder to have him back again!”  
  
“And loving me doesn’t change any of that!” shouted Archie and as she stared up into his face with watery, reddened eyes, he took advantage of her dumbstricken helplessness, cupping her face in his hands and aggressively pressing his mouth to hers. The small whimper that escaped her throat made his cock twitch and he was immediately hard as he overpowered her with his kiss and forced her into gentle submission.  
  
She could taste the salt of her own tears upon his skillful lips, and she knew that her ineffectual struggling only served to inflame him further; she wriggled within the enfold of his brawny arms for a different reason as his tongue wrested her mouth, teasing the length of her own tongue, stroking, mating with it with a fervent desire. She felt that tingle between her legs, that yearning ache that the slick wetness that now bathed her thighs could never quench; she melted into him, her long, lean body relinquishing to his tender yet forceful caress.  
  
“And I love you, Fi,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers as his rough fingertips pet the side of her face, tangled in her dark hair. “Tell me, tell me to leave, to never bother you again. I shall only make polite conversation should I meet you again on holiday, visiting with my brother. You’ll be nothing more to me than a distant relation, nearer a stranger than sister-in-law. But you must tell me.”  
  
“I can’t,” she told him with a stifled snuffle. “Oh, Archie, I do love you.”  
  
He kissed her, and kissed her again, long and lingering. “But you’re daft, you silly man,” she giggled, wiping the wetness from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “We’ll freeze out here. Let’s get back to the manor where it’s warm and...safe.”  
  
“And where her lady of the of the multitudinous sorrows reigns? We’ll be much happier out here. We’ll just have to think of something that will keep us warm,” he teased naughtily as he swept his frock coat over her shoulders.  
  
He urged her backwards until she felt the backs of her knees collide with something solid, a ledge of stone. There was a bench placed by the edge of the pond, used mostly by lovers to watch the sunset reflect an ethereal incandescence off the still waters and she was being pressed onto the cool, flat slab, perched on the edge. Archie took her by the backs of her knees and pushed her backwards as he straddled the bench, placing her legs on either side of his waist. Twilight was rapidly falling and upon the pond’s calm surface the sun’s dying light flared in a display of dazzling color in hues of orange, crimson and purple.  
  
His hand worked the hem of her gown up her lean but shapely calf, relishing the feel of the smooth silk of her stocking. He hooked his fingers into the crook of her knee and pulled; her leg bending upwards as her shank met the underside of her thigh, resting alongside his body; she could feel the burgeoning need at his groin prodding demandingly at the yielding cradle of her hips as her own blood rushed from her head.  
  
The diaphanous fabric of her frock fell back to gather at her waist, leaving him a tantalizing opportunity. She twined her fingers in his and moved his hand to the garter at the top of her stocking, pale pink flesh exposed to the ravenousness of his lust. Pressing his hot, moist lips to her throat, his burrowed his hand betwixt her thighs, heading straight to the damp, furry cleft. She gasped at the rasping sensation of his calloused touch against her torrid skin, smooth as satin and slick with the juices flooding from the tickly core inside her belly. His finger slid into her tight little notch with ease, making her shout and pant his name as he wriggled it in to the knuckle.  
  
“Ooh, oh, Archie,” she breathed, arching against his palm as the pad of his thumb brushed lightly upon the head of the tumid little button peeking from the fore of her plump snatch. His lips gently fondled her collarbone, tracing the prominent ridge with the tip of his tongue, dipping it into the hollow at the base of her throat.  
  
She threw her head to the side, his shirt sleeve refreshingly cool against her burning cheek as she leaned into him. A wispy, vaporous fog was rolling over the bank of the pond from the silent water, clinging low to the ground and enveloping them like some otherworldly veil. But she didn’t feel the cold; her skin tingled and pricked, but it was from the sensation of Archie’s finger moving inside of her, crooking to caress the place within her silken sheath that made her delirious. Her fingers, curled in his fancy cravat, began to push into his waistcoat; she could feel the intense heat of his body through the cool linen of his dress shirt, the brawny muscles of his chest.  
  
And all the while he was pushing in her with his hand, thrusting rhythmically, and she was oh so taut, so small that a second thick finger wouldn’t fit, so he played at the lips within with the tips even as the tender nymphaea greedily sucked him in further, closed about his knuckle as her muscles clinched elatedly. He hungered for more; his cock pounded within his breeches, stiff as a spar and longing for notice, for the tending of her hand, her mouth, her sweet little attentive cunny.  
  
He wanted her to come, to make her orgasm with only his touch; it was power, it was pride, it was egotism, he would well admit, but above all it was love, gallant and giving. She cried out, pressing her mouth to his wildly when the moment was upon her, the colors bursting within her fluttering vision; her tummy clenched, coiling into a knot before the delicious pressure was expelled, erupting into light and warmth and spreading languorously through her veins.  
  
She grappled with him passionately, attempting to grasp and loosen the fastenings at the front of his breeches, clinging to him as he went over the side of the bench, going with him to land atop him on the spongy ground. She was guffawing through her tears of rapture, nibbling upon the bottom lip of his chuckling mouth.  
  
“The earth moved, darling,” she panted, nuzzling her face into his neck. “How was it for you?” They both wheezed with laughter, rolling about the damp, lush bank as they kissed.  
  
“I think you’re right, my love,” he threw his head back in the squashy grass, touching her face and putting his fingertip to her nose. “We need to unearth some other more convenient little hideaway to disappear into.”  
  
“I know just the place,” she giggled, biting her lip playfully. “That is, if you’re not squeamish.”


	3. Chapter 3

Horatio managed a modest hearth fire in the small loft that served as the cottage’s bedchamber; the flickering radiance cast strange yet wondrous shadows upon the beams and recesses of the thatched ceiling in the growing gloom and made the room to fill with the bewitchingly sharp scent of smoking cedar. Outside the warped panes of the room’s sole window, the sky was darkening to a bruised shade of indigo and the stars were twinkling to life; the moon was full and round, a pale orange spectre dominating the heavens like the glowing hollow eye of one of Bram’s jack-o’-lanterns and it bathed the land in an eerie, cool incandescence.

The light of the balefires joined with the luminosity of the many tapers placed along the path to the manor house and its many windows and terraces as well as the wax lights burning tirelessly upon the stair of the mausoleum and on various graves within the burying ground nearby. Horatio placed their one candle upon the sill, whispering to it, “Keep away the darkness, little flame.”

He glanced at the little mantle clock placed precariously on the crooked chimneypiece as he threw his coat onto a nearby chair and his fingers worked at the knot in his cravat. It was barely a quarter past nine o’clock, plenty of time until anyone even began to wonder where they’d gotten off to.

Katie had shaken the dust from the sheets of the surprisingly sumptuous, low-lying sleigh bed and was twirling across the floor, dancing to her own melody, humming sweetly, even to Horatio’s tin ear. But it was a rhythm far more ancient than the joyous sounds of the revelries at Curraghgowen that night; it was the primeval, pagan beat of drums, something elemental to the land. She swayed seductively, trancelike, before a full-length mirror, her eyes half-lidded and the corners of her wide mouth turning enigmatically slightly up at the corners as she removed the pins from her hair, letting her silken silver-blonde hair tumble in bouncing waves against her shoulders and back, gleaming in the firelight.

Horatio wrapped a long arm around her waist from behind, drawing her to him against his sturdy chest, slender fingers splaying across her flat stomach. She’d shed her emerald silk overdress and the light stays she wore about her bust, and stood now in her fine muslin gown. The heat from his hand spread across her skin through the thin fabric, gooseflesh rushing from the tendrils of warmth, hardening the tender tips of her bosom. He was far taller than she was and his chin rested easily atop the crown of her head; his hand glided up her body, his palm brushing the rigid nub at the center of her soft breast, cupping it briefly, squeezing the supple flesh.

He curled those deliciously long fingers about her throat; he could feel her pulse racing beneath the gentle press of his fingertips. He urged her head back, her neck craning gracefully in an elegant curve as he bent over her from behind and thrust his mouth to hers, unhurriedly sucking her bottom lips between his own. She reached up, tangling her hands in his feather soft chestnut curls; she could feel them slip betwixt her fingers like grosgrain ribbons.

He smelled of everything masculine: the brackish scent of saltwater seemed to cling to him like a cologne, infused into every pore, every thin line and crease of his sea-weathered skin; the sharp spice of cider mingled with the male tang of his sweat. He tasted better still; she relished the flavor of his full lips, his questing tongue. She turned in his arms, placing the heels of her palms against his chest and urging him towards the bed with a series of playful shoves, pushing him out of reach every time he stole one quick nip of a kiss.

The backs of his knees connected with the bed’s wooden frame, but he wouldn’t go over easily; he grabbed her, two vast hands almost completely encompassing her thin waist, fingertips nearly converging at the small of her back. He twisted them around and Katie fell first, giggling as she fell with a poofy, muffled thump into the plush featherbed. He climbed astride her, looking deeply into her eyes, his a sultry gaze through unfathomable depths of smoldering, rich caramel, his expanding pupils making his sensual stare closely the color of black coffee.

Her hair was spread about her head like a pale, shimmering halo, her parted lips glistening with his saliva in the flickering glow of the firelight in the most alluring of invitations. He could see the rosy suggestions of her nipples against the fine fabric, peaking against the delicate cotton as his fingertips circled the edges of the flushed shadows.

“Horatio!” she giggled again, wiggling beneath him; the blood rushed spectacularly from his head in a giddy surge, pulsing to his loins, engorging his quickly rampant member. “I’m ticklish!” she squealed, her cheeks coloring enchantingly as she wrinkled her long nose. “Oh no!” she gasped breathlessly as his fingers titillated her sensitive skin. “Oh, you’re mean!” she struggled futilely, laughing. She twisted her leg so the inside of her thigh brushed the inside of him, stroking smoothly against his firm cockstand; he grunted fiercely, the ache clenching him beneath his belly intensified.

He brushed his lips against her ear, his hot breath sending a thrill up and down her spine as he moved his mouth across her jaw, leaving sucking kisses upon her freckled skin.

“Horatio,” she sighed excitedly, laughing airily like the gentle sound of chimes in the breeze.

Horatio loved the sound, but not so much as the exhilarated pant that rushed into her throat as he drew one rigid little nipple into the clasp of his plump lips; the wetness from his mouth saturated the fabric of her chemise. He pulled away for only a moment to draw his lips together and blow a current of cool breath onto the puckered peak.

She inhaled sharply, gripping his glossy brown whorls between her fingers, drawing his head back down to the small mound of her breast. His lips pulled at the erect little nubbin with constricting suction, suckling her greedily as his saliva spread against the muslin, chilling her flesh deliciously as the wetness caught the chilled draft. Working her gown up to her knee, his hand snaked beneath the hem, caressing her thigh, cupping the little cleft at the apex betwixt her legs in his large palm; the springy silver down was already slick with the upwelling nectar of her arousal.

He ran one finger along the damp seam, working between the inflamed lips, stroking almost teasingly. “Ooh, wait!” she gasped, suddenly bracing the balls of her fist against his shoulders and pushing; he reared away immediately, shamefaced as he turned his back to her, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He’d taken too many liberties with her, his tumultuous mind was sure of it, and she’d never forgive him for it. She was innocent, ingenuous; she hadn’t known what she had been agreeing to when she’d accompanied him to the cottage. Oh God, he thought desolately, she’ll never forgive me!

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered wretchedly, not daring to look her in the eye. Her fair brow furrowed, bewildered by his abruptly severe behavior; pursing her mouth, she placed her hand on his shoulder, surprised when he quickly jerked away from her touch. She could live three lifetimes, she was convinced, without ever figuring Horatio out, and she loved that about him but at the moment, she was filled with concern. What if she’d done something wrong?

‘Well, phooey to that,’ she decided!

She knew what she wanted and she’d be damned if she wouldn’t have him; this strange frigidity he’d acquired all at once would just have to go, she’d made up her mind about it!

“I only just wanted to remove this silly old thing,” she told him firmly; the bed rocked for a moment and he felt something hit the back of his head. He reached up and removed it from ‘round his neck where it had twisted and wrapped itself on contact, staring dumbly down at her cotton shimmy in his hand.

The bed bounced several times as Katie pulled herself to the edge of the bed, and she stood before him in nothing but a burning flush that ran across her pale skin.

“Now what do you have to say about that?” she said rebelliously. His eyes stared up at her for an instant uncomprehendingly, still clutching the chemise, and then his gaze began to soften as he took in the vision of exquisite beauty, a heathen goddess reaching out to him. “Only do say it rather hurriedly,” she prompted, beginning to bounce from heel to heel, “because it’s quite drafty in here.”

“I-I thought, I, I thought,” he stammered, chuckling as he shook his head. “I think that I am so very dim-witted and you are spectacularly lovely.”

“Ah, and I see you’ve finally sprouted some sense,” she let out what she hoped was a girlishly beguiling laugh that in actuality sounded more like a squeak as Horatio enveloped her in his arms and pulled her down onto the mattress. He was struck once again at how the wasting fever that had nearly taken her had left her body forever emaciated, fragile, even though modest curves had filled in where skeletal angles had once shown her unwellness. Her wan skin radiated a healthy rosy blush, but he could see how delicate she truly was.

He grabbed on either side of her the blanket she was reclining upon and pulled at it, wrapped it about her even as he rolled her towards the side of the bed where the fireside’s warmth extended. With small hands, she began to tug the shirt out from his breeches; the cloth seemed endless, like one of those silly tricks her father would perform when she was a child, pulling a continuous length of colored handkerchiefs from his fist. She began to laugh and shouted her triumphant

“Ah ha!” when Horatio, in two strong yanks heaved it over his head.

Immediately, her hands slid into the slack in his waistband left by the removal of the shirt; his flesh was burning beneath her fingertips, taut and smooth as silk under the wiry hairs that trickled down from his navel. He gasped as her touch found his hard, throbbing member; he fumbled frantically with the fastenings of his pants, gritting his teeth in his desperation to reveal more of himself to her caress. They had been a great deal easier to put on that afternoon than they were proving to take off again; of course, there had been a bit less to some parts of him then.

He fumbled to push his pants down over his long leg, discarding them carelessly on what he hoped was the floor and not in fact the hearth, which would be somewhat unpleasant later on in the evening. Katie had to bite her lips to keep herself from exclaiming loudly as his erect cock leapt free; she was new to this and was fairly certain that crying out

“Good Lord, is it meant to be that large?” was rather tactless and more of a gaucherie than she’d like to reveal.

They lay side by side as he took her by the wrist and guided her hand against his sizeable length, showing her how he desired to be stroked, for her to stroke him. He kissed her deeply to take away her hesitation, cupping her face in his hands as he savored her taste of lips. Emboldened by his passion, she explored the hot, hard span of his manhood, the skin so smooth like warm living velvet enfolding a core of steel, the veins on the surface engorging with blood until she could feel the throb of his pulse. With one hand, she caressed the sinew of his wiry arms, his solid chest; her fingernails playfully scraped the edges of his flat, dusky nipples.

His mouth moved from hers, reclaiming her breasts, tugging strongly with his lips upon each of the pink tips with fierce sucking kisses, pulling at the tender nubs, plucking them like ripe raspberries. Her fingers were encircling his distended member, cupping the thick, furred root of him, petting him in a delectably deliberate rhythm, her palm rubbing lightly up and down his shaft, the little remaining elasticity of his foreskin lessening as he grew and stretched to his impressively full size.

A deep, guttural groan escaped the back of his throat and he realized he was rapidly approaching the verge of his consuming ecstasy; he stayed her hand, breathing with great difficulty, his chest heaving, as he struggled to bring himself back from the threshold.

“Not yet,” he murmured in her ear, his eyes screwed shut for a moment as he steadied himself against her. “Not yet for me,” he grinned, running his hand along her backside, catching the back of her thigh in his grasp, raising her leg as he bowed his head. He kissed her flat belly, the softly jutting bone of each lean hip, before his mouth disappeared betwixt her thighs.

Katie began to pant little gasps of excitement as she watched his tousled chestnut head nestle into the cradle of her hips, his curls tickling and stimulating her responsive skin, and could think of nothing so wicked, so delightfully depraved, as the sight of it. That was, until she felt the wet, warm press of his lips and tongue diving into the slippery folds of flesh, the bedewed petals of her womanhood. She could only bear to watch for so long before it overwhelmed her; letting her eyes flutter closed as she let the feeling of his mouth engulf her. Even with her eyes shut, she could still hear him, the wolfishly appreciative smacking of his lips as he devoured her.

His tongue was thick, long, as it slithered inside her, through her luscious furrow, eating her up, drinking her down in slow, desirous draughts. His teeth nibbled the tender tip of her rigid little clitoris, drawing the button into the hot, moist confines of his mouth, nursing the naughty bit of flesh fervently. A sensation wholly new, but decidedly not strange, began to break over her like roiling, frothed waves of giddied bliss; like an ache running through every inch of her begging to be released; like a sneeze or an itch that could only bring the highest rapturous euphoria and release at the height of its conclusion. She was in agony; a torment so excruciating and wonderful, she felt she could only be touching heaven.

And, just like that, he stopped. She cried out in protest, her flesh still throbbing with the scrumptious yearning his touch inspired. He silenced any objection she might voice with a hungry kiss; his mouth was drenched in her juices, and he licked his lips with relish before letting her taste herself, briny like the sea air, moist and fresh as a gentle spring rain.

From what he did next, there would be no return; it was a primal oath sealed with the blood of her innocence. It could have been one of the most difficult decisions of his life: he could have dithered, thinking on very possible course the one lustful act could take them on, weighing every consequence one impulsive deed could set in motion. It could have been one of the most difficult decisions of his life but, somehow, it wasn’t; his mind was perfectly clear at the moment. He knew precisely what he wanted and the path before him seemed astonishingly lucid and straightforward.

He placed himself between her thighs, the color of cream parted in a recklessly tempting allurement; his entire lanky frame shuddered as the bulging crown of his swelling prick brushed the mouth of her sultry snatch, hot, steamy and dripping with her desire for him. He wanted her; months alone at sea couldn’t and never had inspired such a longing in him as he had. He wanted to remember all of this, to commit to memory every detail: the smell of her hair, the feel of her breasts in his hands, the taste of her pussy on his lips. He wanted to recall every aspect of her, her naked body and his powerful need for her when he was in his bunk, fondling his long cock in his large hands.

Katie’s heart was aflutter, eager but unaware of what precisely to expect; she could feel him tense beneath her touch, muscles rippling like the sea, sudden uncertainty making him hesitate. She smiled softly, gently encouraging him, lightly undulating her hips so that her slickened seam stroked his length, her glossy, pale hairs tantalizing his tender flesh. The point of no return was truly upon them and Katie was resolute that he understand she wanted this, she wanted him, more than anything in the world. She wasn’t frightened--she could never be frightened of him or anything he would do to her, and the wondrous things he made her feel were enjoyable beyond what she would have believed possible.

The thin trembling barrier of her maidenhead gave way easily to his charging member. He drew back and thrust in to the foundation of his massive member, kissing her eyelids, the blushing whorls of color on her cheeks; her arms around his neck, she moaned his name over and again, moving her hips to the rhythm of his own.

He was so large, so stiff and forceful, and she could feel him penetrating the heart of her, riding deep and hard into her tender belly. They were so young, so intoxicated by their own naïve love and the blissful discovery that came with it. Thrusting relentlessly, he satiated her most intense, primal craving; she wrapped her slender legs about his waist, her fingernails biting into the taut, sinewy flesh of his shoulders as she raked her fingers against his back. She found her own rhythm, wiggling her backside and clinching her muscles in an undulating wring like the grip of a milkmaid’s nimble caress.

And then the sensation was upon her again, like she was falling upwards, and screaming his name, she came in a burst of scintillating colors before her eyes. Her climax intensified as Horatio’s approached, his hips hastening their frantic pace. He embraced her tightly as he groaned, a surge of his pearly, molten sperm rushing forth, pumping into her womb with every delirious lunge.

As his breathing calmed, he cradled her to him, petting her damp hair, running his fingers along her sweat-slickened skin. He once more feasted upon her breasts as she reclined upon the bed, closing her eyes; she wasn’t cold anymore, and not nearly as sore as she thought she would be. Contented lethargy spread throughout her: she was tired from their pleasurable exertions, and her eyes began to drift closed even as it seeped into her unconsciousness that the night was becoming ever more dark.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Archie asked in a hushed undertone so muted Fiona had to struggle to hear him above the constant low moaning of the wind. A storm was blowing in, wisps of clouds passed over the full moon like smoke from a cigar as thunderheads on the distant horizon flared with dry lightning. “It looks like we’re in for a pretty nasty downpour.”

“Rain? Here in Ireland?” Fiona murmured teasingly, twisting between the granite blocks that strewed the ground like standing stones, her skirts twirling about her as if she was dancing. “How extraordinary.” She paused, looked back at him and asked in a conspiratorial manner, “Why are we whispering? I thought the point was to go someplace no one would hear us.”

Archie cleared his throat and, glancing around uneasily, admitted in a normal voice, “It just seemed more...respectful.” As he spoke, the toe of his shoe caught on a thick vine and tripped him up; he stumbled for a moment, swearing until he caught his balance, bracing his hand against a nearby headstone. With a shiver, he appraised his surroundings: the cemetery adjacent to the family mausoleum was populated with memorials of all shapes and sizes, from plain slabs of polished stone to marble angles glaring haughtily down at him from their lavish perches.

He could now see in the small, trembling light of the candle he carried and which he had pilfered from one of the graves that the vine he had tripped over grew in abundance, twining around the tombstones and sepulchers like grasping fingers.

“Wormwood,” Fiona explained, “it grows in wealth here. It’s meant to signify the presence of the restless dead,” she muttered eerily and then surprised Archie with a giddy laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re truly affrighted by all of this. Have you heard their local legend?”

“’Extinguish thee not the candle’s light, before the eleventh chime sounds at the hour of midnight; Quench thee not the glow in the window there, and if thou dost go forward with care; For the darkness calls them into sight, in the blackest hour they come, the dead of night,’” Archie recounted, recalling how stubborn Katie had become when he teased her about it. “The light keeps the scary things at bay,” he summarized. “Like Jack with his lantern wandering the dark night.”

“The heathens of old thought that for this night only the dead walked once more,” Fiona told him, taking his hand and leading him through the permeating gloom. “It was a night to honor the recently dead, those who had passed in the year gone by.”

Archie recalled that the Catholics still gathered at Hallowmas to light candles for those who had died in the past year, a modern acclimation of ancient belief and tradition. The second of November was, after all, in the Catholic Church still dedicated to all souls who remained in purgatory; they were only allowed to pass into heaven after that day, urged on by the prayers and remembrances of their loved ones.

“They lit bonfires to keep them away and danced into the night, practicing their...wicked, libidinous rites,” she pursed her demurely smiling lips coyly.

‘Forgive me, Father,’ Archie thought, ‘for all I think about it sinning.’ He grinned impishly, “Sounds like my sort of merrymaking. I could do with a few wicked, libidinous acts myself,” he laughed as he caught her about the waist and drew her to him; she wriggled in his grasp, purposely inflaming his ardor.

“It’s just this way,” she told him, placing a finger to his lips and then slipping from his embrace like a ghost. The trail of her billowing gown was like a spectre floating in the misty night, and he chased her feeling as if, even if he did manage to catch her, she would slip from his arms like nothing more than a phantasmal vapor.

The caretaker’s shed, no bigger than the smallest of the crypts, took shape in the shadow; Fiona pried the door open, and it gave way on rusted hinges with a grating creak loud enough, Archie mused, to wake the dead. She paused to glance back at him, crooked her finger and disappeared inside. Archie squinted against the darkness inside; it was dusty, the air rather stale against his tongue though the sturdy door and absence of windows protected the small space from the cold.

He strained his ears in the hushed silence and, for a moment only, he thought he heard voices on the wind, soft mutterings too airy to discern substantive words. He turned to stare out into the dimness, the glowing moon providing only a small measure of ghostly illumination. Just for the briefest of instants, he fancied he could see movement there in the murky night amongst those silent stone monuments.

“Did you hear...” he began to ask but as he turned and stepped inside the shack, he collided into a low beam.

“Ooh, sorry,” she gasped apologetically, reaching for him and kissing his smarting forehead. “I meant to warn you to duck your head!”

“I’m not hurt,” he assured her, holding up the candle to make sure he avoided the crisscross of rafters in the confined little place. There wasn’t much room for either of them to move about, though luckily the shed was empty and free of obstruction, what little there was of it, and he had learned to improvise in such situations. He discarded the candle and it landed on the simple flagstone floor on its side, its small flame sputtering but not extinguishing; a heavier shroud of darkness enveloped them like an embrace. He backed her up against the wall opposite the threshold, kicking the door closed with the heel of his shoe.

The fastenings of his breeches were already loosened from the earlier passionate grappling and came away quickly as they both tugged. Impatiently, he pushed the fabric of his shirt out of the way, exposing his burning groin, at last, to the cool air.

“Touch me,” he demanded huskily, dragging his mouth from her lips to the tender pulse beneath her jaw.

“Is that an order, lieutenant?” she asked breathlessly, gasping as he wove his fingers into her dark hair and jerked her head back, exposing her throat to his kiss while he filled his hands with her plush breasts, squeezing gently.

“It is,” he responded hoarsely, nipping at her neck with his sharp white teeth.

“Aye, aye, sir,” she muttered mischievously, stealing from his clasp once more like she was made of stardust and smoke. He grunted fiercely, bracing his palms against the bare wall, when he felt her hot breath sweep across his throbbing flesh.

“Yes,” he commanded through gritted teeth, “yes!”

His stout shaft was entirely erect, engorged, swollen to its full girth, which was considerable; his sheer heft weighed the bulging crown downwards. Fiona kissed the distended tip, tasting the brackishness of his readiness; the head of his cock was large and swelling like an overripe fruit, a plump, juicy plum to devour. She drew it between her lips and sucked, the tip of her tongue teasing, licking at the ridge that ran along the underside of the crest.

She breathed in deeply, intent on making herself lightheaded with the heady, masculine scent of him. Inch by inch she took him into her mouth until he nestled in the opening of her throat; her fingers dug into the taut brawn of his backside as she pushed down on him, making his hips buck involuntarily, driving his rigid member insistently betwixt her lips.

His heartbeat thundered upon her tongue as blood pulsed through his fat, expanding phallus, her lips applying pressure, hungry suction against his delicate, velvet foreskin as she suckled him. She adored the taste of him, his hot, salty flesh and the precious pungent drops of his pre-come; his strong body trembled with the effort of suffering the pleasure he was receiving so selflessly on Fiona’s behalf. It was time for Archie to return the favor.

Wrapping his hands about her shoulders and thrusting his fingers under her arms, he hauled her to her feet, allowing a fierce grunt to escape his throat as his manhood slipped reluctantly from her greedy lips. Balling her skirts in his fists, he yanked them to her waist and, taking grip of her thighs, spreading them for him and lifting her slightly, plunged into the depths of her deliciously soft, melting pussy. He drove her against the wall, impaling her fully upon his tumid shaft; she draped her legs about his waist, clutching to him desperately as he pumped into her.

He tugged violently at the bodice of her frock until he felt one bouncing, creamy bosom spring free of her neckline; cupping the succulent mound, he lowered his head to the puckering, dusky little teat at the center, drawing it into his mouth and nursing loudly, making sure she heard every favorable smack of his lips and tongue.

“Oh, Archie,” she cried, nearly sobbing in ravishment as she twined her fingers in his silken copper hair. Their bellies met in a rolling motion as they thrust against each other and she could feel that glossy pelt about and above his groin tantalizing her smooth skin, making her tingle wherever it touched.

She was so delectably small, so tight that his penetrating cock struggled to occupy her, stretching the throbbing walls of her constricting sheath, still scrumptiously oiled and tender from coming against the assault of Archie’s fingers earlier. Oh, what he wouldn’t have given to have been back at the manor house, to have her lay upon his bed, let only by the flickering caress of the hearth fire, her naked body bathed in its glow as he slowly explored each luscious inch of her with his fingers and tongue. Those breasts, those marvelous titties, bared to his leisurely scrutiny.

The muscles of her clenching cunny gripped him suddenly as she reached climax once more for him, kneading his portly prick, squeezing the milk from him as he too erupted into orgasm. His seed surged into her, sultry and sticky, pumping her with his hot shot, spurting deep inside of her until he was well spent. They sagged against each other, panting for breath, kissing, groping passionately, like lovers who may never get the chance to express their love in such a manner again.

“I do, Archie,” she murmured in his ear, sucking upon his earlobe, “I do love you, oh so very much.”

Just then, the door blew open, making both of them start violently at the unexpected intrusion. Fiona yelped and Archie jumped to his feet, ever careless of the low ceiling timbers; he felt a vicious pain in his head as if he’d been struck from behind and felt a darkness envelop him as he crumpled to the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

Katie had been dozing lightly when the clock upon mantelpiece chimed quarter past eleven. She had dreamt such wondrous things, such deliciously wicked things only to wake and remember that so much of it had been real; the warm press of Horatio’s naked flesh, his solid body molding to her own as he lay against her, arms about her. Her stirring had roused him and he allowed himself one debauched, languorous stretch of his long limbs, his large hands grazing the modest curves of her soft, bare skin.

She smiled at him as he kissed the corner of her mouth, his lusciously full lips sucking tenderly upon hers, his hand splayed against her belly and wandering further south. “The party,” she groaned reluctantly, finding it difficult even to force the words from her throat. “The children will have been put to bed,” she said more insistently after a moment’s hesitation, reluctant to cease Horatio’s downward caress; the thought of his fingertips wriggling betwixt the petals of her womanhood, stroking the flesh made tender by his attention made her shiver with a wicked thrill. She pulled away nonetheless, reaching for her gown as she explained, “The elders will be readying to tell tall tales ghost stories for the midnight hour; the men will notice your absence.”

Something nagged at the back of her mind as she dressed, and she couldn’t escape the feeling that something was amiss. The room looked much as it did when they had come across it, rumpled in some places--namely the bed--but she could see nothing so changed that it should be weighing on her so greatly. She bent over, searching the floor for a discarded stocking when she realized what was troubling her. She straightened, her eyes wide.

“Horatio!” she gasped. “It’s gotten darker!”

“Of course it is, love,” he said evenly, arranging his clothing before the mirror, hoping to recapture some semblance of orderliness. “I’ve not stoked the fire in going on an hour; I was afraid of waking you. “He grinned. “You looked so peaceful.”

“No, it’s not that,” she said, the alarm in her voice rising.

The hearth was nothing but a cooling mound of low burning embers, the deep crimson all but obscured by the prevailing gray of the ash; the small candle on the sill provided most of the chamber’s dim light, burnt almost down to its bare wick, bleeding tendrils of ghostly white tallow. She hardly noticed it as she walked to the window, placing her hand against the cool pane and gazing out in growing dismay. The sky lit with lightning and thunder rolled ominously in the distance.

“Out there, tell me, what do you see?”

Horatio spared but a gaze and shrugged. “Nothing,” he replied.

“Indeed,” she bit her lip, her skin blanching until he thought she could pass as nothing more than smooth marble. “Nothing! The balefires burn in the very distance but the grounds...Oh, Horatio, they’ve gone pitch-dark! The mausoleum, the surrounding park, all of those candles, they’ve been snuffed out! Tell me,” she implored, “tell me I have read the clock wrong!”

He shook his head, bewildered. “It reads that it is nearly half past eleven, as you have seen. My darling, what is wrong?” he cried out as she sobbed, collapsing to the floor and tossing her arms about her head. He took her hand in his, frowning as he felt how cold she’d become.

She took long, deep breaths to steady her weeping and banish the panic that constricted about her heart. “’The eleventh chime sounds at the hour of midnight,’” she repeated softly. “The hour of the dead approaches,” she said more clearly as she composed her face and raised it to his; she was a mask of cold calm now and once more Horatio admired the stony strength of the Cassaday women. “We are in danger, Horatio. We must get to the manor quickly, it is the only place we will be safe.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Oh, Archie, thank goodness!” sighed Fiona, putting her hand to her heart in relief as Archie’s eyes light-headedly flickered open.

“Did I miss something?” he asked, groaning as he reached his hand around to the back of his head where an egg-sized lump now ornamented his scalp. “Ouch,” he grumbled as she helped him to sit up; his stomach turned over for a moment and he fought to keep down an acrid taste rising in his throat. “What happened?” he inquired, holding his head, which felt as if it would split from the rumble within it at any moment.

“The growing wind from the storm blew the door in,” she explained, gesturing to the empty doorsill and the lightning illumined grounds beyond, leaving strange impressions and colors dancing within his eyesight when he blinked. “You bashed your head something fierce against one of the ceiling beams; you were insensible, I couldn’t get you to wake!”

“I thought I saw someone,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his head as he frowned, trying to recall exactly what had happened, but the memory remained elusive, like a dream experienced in a delirium. “In the doorway, like a wraith.” He groaned once again.

“Careful, you’re still a bit wobbly from the blow,” she cautioned, giving the top of his head a small kiss as she helped him to his feet. “I thought I saw someone too, out there in the cemetery. I went looking for help when I could not rouse you, I called out but no one answered. You gave me a terrible fright, you did!” she gently scolded him.

“How long have I been out?” he asked, accepting the support of her shoulders.

“I cannot be certain, but I think it’s been near on an hour,” she informed him and he almost lost his footing in surprise.

“An hour?!” he roared and she nearly buckled under his weight as she helped him over the threshold and into the graveyard. “I’ve been unconscious for an hour? Where have you been?”

“I told you, looking for help,” she said and Archie thought she sounded rather peevish, though whether from having to answer a redundant question or something more he couldn’t tell. “I tried to make it back to the manor but got lost in the darkness; I was lucky to find my way back to you at all!”

Now that she mentioned it, Archie was aware of the fact that the park had gone completely black; even the glow from the nearby mausoleum seemed to have been diminished wholly.

At first he thought it was the thick, damp mist that shrouded the grounds like a death pall that bedimmed the burning little flames, but quickly he realized he could make out the baleful, hulking black shape of the massive crypt, even recognizing the shape of the cracked stone stair that the wax lights had sat upon. No rain had fallen to extinguish the candles and Archie had observed them stand up to heavier winds as they’d made their way out there in the first place. For whatever reason, it seemed obvious to him that they had been put out intentionally.

“I think we should get back to the hall as soon as possible,” he swallowed hard, their surroundings taking issue with his ordinarily hearty sense of courageousness.

“I don’t disagree,” she said in a tiny voice, taking his arm firmly. Their pace quickened, though they tried to disguise their trepidation as a brisk stroll. “Do you hear that?” she asked him quietly, fear making her tiny words tremble slightly. All about them there was a malevolent whispering, a tide of voices that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“Just keep walking,” he advised in an undertone, his eyes straying to the mausoleum entrance that now, he could spy in the murkiness, stood open. “How heavy, d’you suppose, are those doors?”

“Very,” she gasped, clutching him closer. “I watched as they sealed them after Declan’s interment; it took the strength of thirteen men to move them in the first place. It’s cold, so very cold suddenly. Oh, Archie,” she gagged, putting her hand over her mouth and nose, “do you smell that? It’s--it’s the stench of death. Tell me, Archie, tell me that ‘tis only our imaginations preying upon us...”

She yelped unexpectedly and fell from Archie’s embrace, tumbling to the ground and landing hard upon her twisted ankle. “The wormwood?” he asked apprehensively, aware that her breathing had become loud, shallow.

“N-no,” she told him, “something hard, something smooth. Not a tombstone, though; wood, maybe, polished but old...” With a startling abruptness, the moon broke through the dense, angry cloud cover, and the pale light of its large, cool surface illuminated the dreary night. Its ashen brightness did nothing to chase away the shadows though; instead it seemed only to enhance them, give them life.

And Fiona had to stifle a shriek when at last she could see the object entangled in her skirts and legs: a coffin, its once gleaming surface pocked and tarnished with age. “Fancy,” she said finding it hard to draw air into her chest, though she tried to make her words sound good-natured, droll, even as she scrabbled backwards. “Who would leave one of those lying about?”

“Fi,” Archie whispered, dread filling his constricting heart like the icy clutch of death, “it doesn’t look like someone left it lying about. It looks as if someone--or something--has dragged it out from...” He gazed in horror towards the mausoleum. All of a sudden, he understood why someone would deliberately quench the protecting flames as the verse he’d heard repeated all day long played through his head over and again. “From in there. Oh, Fi, what have you done? What have you done in hoping to bring Declan back...?”

Whatever else might have been said was lost when a fierce scream was ripped from her lungs, splitting the galvanic air like a crack of lightning. The casket was rocking to and fro, as if something was trying to force its way out from the inside; the lid cracked, splintering as its occupant forced through the weakened wood, and onto the marshy soil spilled a stinking, putrefied corpse. Its bedraggled old clothes, once the most elegant of finery in the century bygone, hung in dingy velvet tatters from its skeletal limbs like rags. Long, stringy hair clung to its head, ropes of rotting sinew barely held the grimy, yellowed bones together, and out its hollow eye sockets oozed the slimy, dusty remains of gray matter, seeping out like ash.

The creature raised its head on an unsteady neck, staring at them malevolently with its empty stare and its jaw dropped open, plump, slimy maggots and worms tumbling from its fetid teeth as a harsh hiss issued from what remained of its throat. It seemed this functioned as some sort of rallying cry to its brethren for all of a sudden they were surrounded by them: lurching, lumbering cadavers, bony fingers grasping at the two of them, clutching at their hair and clothing.

Archie took Fiona by the arm and hauled her to her feet, nearly dragging her behind him as he ran, calling, “Make for the manor! The light there will protect us!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Horatio watched as the darkened grounds seemed to shift, move like the uneasy keeling of the ocean at night, that disorienting feeling of staring out over the black waters with only the heavens above to guide you. But he was on solid land now, and even more disquieting was the knowledge that it shouldn’t be happening at all. Still his mind would not allow him to believe what gripped at his heart and filled his stomach with bile, his intellect refusing to trust the evidence of his own eyes.

“Stuff and nonsense, said you,” he muttered, his voice remaining even and calm despite the turmoil within.

“Well, I wasn’t going to tell you the truth, was I?” protested Katie in a low hiss. “You would have thought I was completely cracked in the head, wouldn’t you? You would have dismissed it as just that: stuff and nonsense; you would have laughed or worse.”

Horatio kept a tight hold on Katie as they crept through the shadow, using the heavy fog to conceal their progress. The enemy lurked there in the gloom, and Horatio had only too much experience with nighttime incursions sneaking unseen through his opponents’ territory; to his relief, Katie followed his lead exactly, watching him, learning from his actions. But this was not any sort of adversary he’d ever faced before, this was a factor unknown: he could not predict their moves, nor could he calculate their reactions; he couldn’t even bring himself to conceive of their existence. He did know whenever one was near for the stench of grave mould that clung to them was unbearably overpowering.

“How long have you known?” he asked, his curiosity and skepticism overruling his own urge to stay silent.

“All my life,” she replied, shrugging. “Well, I’d been told about it all my life, and when you’re a child, you take very seriously the things adults tell you. Of course, I matured and started to question it as superstitious silliness, especially when my brothers and sisters began to grow, leave home, and become more worldly wise. And then, five years ago, I saw it for myself. We laid my grandfather to rest--it’s the newly entombed who stir it up, you see, make the others restless for their own want to hang on to their former lives.

“Quickly, we learned to respect the local customs,” she pursed her lips solemnly. “We hid inside the manse, hoping the candles and firelight were enough to protect us. They were, but there is great cost to not appeasing the dead; when placated, they grant a good harvest, health and happiness; when dissatisfied, they send famine, illness.”

“The fever,” he breathed, and Katie nodded grimly.

“They called it death’s breath,” she told him, “and it spread at an unnatural rate among us; it dwindled us. We wasted us away to nothing like we suffered from grave rot. Papa sent me to America, to my uncle, as soon as he was sure I was well enough to travel; he wanted me well away from this...haunted place. Three years I stayed away, but Irene became affianced and I missed my home and my family. I knew that they had learned to take great precautions; I felt safe in returning.”

“Yes, I can see how well the precautions work,” replied Horatio caustically. “But this isn’t about weakness in safety measures, is it?” he said perceptively. “You were wary about going past the mausoleum but not adverse; you were certain enough of their effectiveness to go forth despite your experiences. This was calculated, it was intentional and it has everything to do with Declan’s passing.”

“Who--who would do such a thing?” she gasped. “We are all greatly aggrieved by the loss of Declan, but who among us would risk such a horrid thing?”

He stopped, cocking his ear to the wind; he could have sworn he’d heard a shout but if his ears had not been playing tricks on him, it had been too far to locate its owner. Just then, the full moon broke free of the roiling clouds, setting the land awash in its eerie glow, and Horatio saw them, the decomposing horde shambling and staggering across the vast, fog-shrouded lawns. They clawed their way from the ground, newly upturned grave dirt carelessly pushed aside as they tumbled from what should have been their final resting places. And at the head of the foul, otherworldly intrusion was the mausoleum, its occupants scrabbling their way from the deepest of catacombs to stumble out into the night.

“Can you really not guess?” he replied bleakly. “Someone who knows the legend but not of its terrible consequences, someone who has come quite unhinged in their sorrow--does this not sound familiar?”

“Miss Wheaton?” said Katie incredulously. But though she didn’t even want to suppose Fiona capable of it, she saw the sense in Horatio’s reasoning and deep in her heart concurred with it. “No, Horatio, she wouldn’t. I know you think that she is disturbed, but, earlier, with Lieutenant Kennedy, it seemed quite like she...” A scream of terror shattered the restless stillness and this time it was loud enough to identify the direction it had originated from; grabbing Katie, he took off as fast as his long legs could carry him.

He could see two figures running amongst the legion of macabre creatures, absent of the shuffling gait characteristic to the newly risen dead, and changed course to intercept; they were stranded in the middle of the whole grisly mess as well and their was strength as well as protection in numbers. A tempestuous thunderhead once more concealed the moon’s illumination, and they found themselves faltering about in the darkness anew. A flash of lightning revealed the fact that they were on a crash course with their quarry just in time; Horatio skidded to a halt nearly nose to nose with Archie, and both raised their fists in desperate, improvised defense.

Fiona stood behind Archie, her face ashen as a ghost’s, her chest rising and falling as her lungs clutched for air; she exchanged a shaky nod of recognition with Katie, whose demeanor seemed surprisingly cold.

“Well,” Horatio uttered a trembling sigh of relief. “Well. Busy night?”

Archie laughed breathlessly. “Wish I could say I’ve seen worse. And I’m truly hoping I won’t be saying the same at the end of the night, because whatever they may compare to Hell in popular saying, I’m sure the actual thing makes all else pretty enviable.”

“To the manor,” Katie nodded.

“To the manor,” they all repeated, and set out once more, aware of the uncomfortable fact that pausing even for a moment’s time had drawn unwanted attention to them.

“How could you have brought this upon us?” Katie murmured to Fiona as the fell in behind the men, her tone speaking more of disappointment and dashed hopes than of antagonism or ire.

“Why does everyone think I had a part this?” she cried in response, glaring pointedly at the back of Archie’s head. “It’s easy to blame the outsider, isn’t it? Even if I had been daft enough to have believed in this insanity in the first place, this phantasmagorical madness which I’m still struggling to get my mind ‘round, I’d no idea it’d actually work, did I? Furthermore, I’ve been with Lieutenant Kennedy all evening!”

“I was insensible for bear on an hour,” muttered Archie, almost guiltily. “You claim to have left me only to find help yet you saw no one tamper with the candles, you declare it was already too dark to find your way to the manor house and yet you didn’t run afoul of these ghouls once?”

“Well,” Fiona hissed, the beginnings of tears making their presence known at the corners of her eyes, “since I’m out here lurking in the fog as frightened as the rest of you lot, I’d say this nefarious plan you allege I conceived and carried out has gone terribly wobbly, wouldn’t you?”

“Can we please have this discussion once we’re securely inside the safety of Curraghgowen Hall?” Horatio said tersely.

“Except,” Archie paused, his body going rigid as he gazed out into the distance, “I’m not sure how safe the manor is anymore.” They all stared in the direction he was looking towards and their hopes fell like broken glass about their feet for the large, ancient manse was not nearly as alight as it had been merely hours ago at dusk. Indeed, the patio was nigh swathed in blackness, the seasonally festive display once glowing on the great stone terrace nearly quenched.

“It’s happening here, too,” Katie gasped quietly, horror-stricken, for her steadfast faith in the sanctuary that was her home and family was rapidly fading. “Oh God, will there be no escape from this Hell left to us?”

“What time do you guess it to be?” asked Horatio.

“Nearing midnight,” responded Katie, having kept a loose reckoning of the passage of time in her head since they’d left the cottage. “The rhyme, it says that candles can only afford you protection if they are not snuffed before the eleventh chime of midnight. So there’s hope, if we can keep some burning until after the strike of midnight!”

“Do you hear the voices?” Fiona spoke so softly her words were nearly lost among the brisk breeze. “I’ve heard them from the start and sometimes it feels as if they’re calling, to me and only me.”

“Don’t listen,” advised Horatio. “No good can come of it; it’s them, they try to lure us off into the darkness.”

“I hear it, too,” Katie said in a wistful manner, almost as if she was in a trance. “Like they whisper in my ear, things that only...” She gasped, turning where she stood. “Kat,” she sighed pensively, “it called me Kat. Only Declan ever called me Kat. He’s out there, he’s reaching for me.”

Horatio took her arm and gave her a form shake; she seemed to awake, her eyes clearing as she looked to him. She nodded smartly, bespeaking that she was well again. He touched her face tenderly. And yet she continued to listen to that voice which repeated her name in a ghostly sough, her heart aching.

“It looks as if we’re not the only ones who wish for entrance to Curraghgowen,” Archie gritted his teeth as they neared the outskirts of the gardens. The creatures were gathering around the windows and French doors, pounding with determined hands until the panes shook, rattling in their frames treacherously; rotted flesh peeled away and left gory streaks as the ghouls attempted to claw their way inside, bared bones clinking, scraping against the glass.

“Why is it every time you make an observation,” Horatio tsked, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head slowly, “things look worse and worse for us? Don’t worry,” he said calmly, “we can find another way...”

Fiona let out an ear-shattering shriek as one of the monsters grabbed her arm; it leered from the darkness, its dry and wrinkled gray skin clinging to its nearly exposed cheekbones while it shriveled away from its eyeballs, leaving them stark, exposed white orbs with surprisingly clear blue centers and pin prick pupils that seemed to take in everything and nothing all at once. Flesh shrank from its gums, its teeth set in a permanent grimace like a macabre grin, and its emaciated fingers dug painfully but resolutely into Fiona’s forearm.

It too let its jaw fall open and emitted a malicious gurgling hiss which once again seemed to serve as a rallying call, though whether it was this or Fiona’s unremitting screaming that drew the attention of every one of the stinking creatures within the area, numbering in the hundreds, directly to them they couldn’t guess. They were too busy trying to pry the thing’s relentless grip from Fiona’s arm; even with the strength of both men, they labored greatly against its supernatural might.

At last, the ghouls arm wrenched from its shoulder and with the hand still grasping Fiona, Horatio urged them all to move and to move quickly.

“No plan,” he shouted over his shoulder, Katie’s hand in his as they sprinted through the gardens, dodging the outstretched clutches of the malevolent ghouls, whose forces became denser as they neared the house. “Just run! Get inside any way you can!”

He’d already spotted a corner of the stately manse that the creatures were avoiding, one still ablaze with the protection of candlelight; he recognized it as a small door used by the servants to nip in and out of the ballroom onto the patio.

“Oh, let us in!” Katie cried, pulling at the knob, banging her palms against the solid wood as if that would somehow weaken the bolts that were keeping it firmly in place. “Oh please, let us in!”

It was Bram who appeared, swatting away the hands of those frightened family members who would have prevented him from drawing back the latches and quickly ushering them through the door. Katie embraced her little brother as they tumbled inside, placing a grateful kiss on top of his head.

“Ugh, get orf,” Bram protested but threw his arms tightly about her waist nonetheless.

James clapped his brother on the back as he helped Archie to stand, exchanging a subtly affectionate fraternal nods.

“Don’t let her in!” someone shouted shrilly as Irene helped Fiona dust herself down, a maid bunching her pinny in her clenched hands. “She’s the one did this! Don’t you see it? She’s a traitor! We should leave her to them; it’s what she wanted for us all!”

“Nonsense!” bellowed Horatio and Irene in chorus, the latter embracing Fiona defensively. “Was she in two places at once then?” added Irene thunderously, daring anyone present to contradict her. “Or three or four? For it seems to me that there would have to have been multiple conspirators to manage a scheme such as this!

“If she had been down at the mausoleum” she eyed her husband’s brother rather sharply with a raised eyebrow and Archie swallowed hard, knowing he’d been found out, but to his surprise she did not give the lovers away, “she couldn’t well have darted back here and ran room to room extinguishing all the candles in the manor now, could she have done? Not in--how long ago did you say you first noticed the darkness, Mr. O’Shea?”

It was the farmer who’d given them a lift in his cart earlier that day; it seemed like a lifetime ago to Horatio, so much had changed. O’Shea nervously twisted his hat between his two hands as he replied deferentially knuckling his forehead, a gesture Horatio thought aimed more at Irene than himself or any of the military or naval men present,

“Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but I reckon it was little more’n an hour now; that’s when I thought to alert ye good folk, ma’am. Not that I’m a superstitious man, but, erm...” He needn’t finish his sentence; the ghastly moans and persistent pounding upon the windows spoke it all.

“I think this rather took more than an hour to execute,” Horatio observed grimly. “As a matter of fact, I should think that this has been happening all night right beneath our very noses, while we were otherwise,” he glanced furtively at Katie, “distracted and unsuspecting.”

“You know who perpetrated this wicked deed then?” James asked.

“At the moment, I only suspect. But I rather believe we should get to safety place first,” Horatio cleared his throat and raised his voice authoritatively. “The ballroom is no longer secure,” he announced to the small group gathered. “Half the candles have gone out and I imagine it won’t be long until those evil things find a way inside. We should shelter somewhere smaller, easier to defend. How soon is midnight?”

“A matter of minutes,” responded James tensely. “And is it only me, or has it gotten darker as we’ve stood here? The servants. They’re the only ones who could have come and gone all night with being noticed, and they could be in several places at once. We’re a few short now,” he noticed, browsing the faces of their dwindling party. The maid who had so vocally accused Fiona was absent.

“The parlor,” Bram chimed in as he barged between the adults towards Horatio, scowling at Irene as she attempted to shush him. “Where my jack-o’-lanterns are in exile. They’ll protect us; no one took notice of them before, I doubt anyone’s thought to put them out.”

“Good thinking, young Bram,” Horatio gave a reluctant smile of pride. “Everyone, follow little Master Cassaday,” he called out, placing a hand on Bram’s shoulder. He bent over at the waist and told the boy face to face, “Put them in the windows first, and then surrounding the door.” Bram nodded and saluted.

A voice rose among the ensuing clamor, and Horatio struggled to make sense of any of the words; others seemed to be agreeing with the man who’d spoken, an older gentleman with the shock of hoary hair and a deeply rosy complexion.

“I think Uncle Eamon said,” Archie interpreted for his friend, “that, if this is to be our last stand, he would rather find a room upstairs to secure and last out the assault.”

“Head for higher ground?” Horatio quirked an eyebrow and Eamon responded with another series of mumbled, heavily-accented sentences. Horatio nodded, taking that for a yes. “Remember,” he told Eamon and the group that decided to follow, “tapers in the windows and around the doors; it is your first and last line of defense. And batten down before the eleventh chime of midnight; after that, I cannot guarantee anyone’s wellbeing. To the parlor!” he called, waving his followers on.

Just as they began to move, the strident noise of breaking glass echoed throughout the spacious room and that rank stench of decay blew in with the howling wind. As they rushed down the narrow corridor that lead to the forgotten sitting room, Horatio couldn’t help but allow his attention to wander to those doors that lined the hallway, noting their destination at the very end of the long passageway; if those creature managed to break through even two or three of the rooms would mean they would be trapped, backed into a corner. He only hoped he was making the right decision trusting in the words of the rhyme, that the candles ensured fortification.

“Archie, I have a confession,” Fiona pursed her lips and furrowed her dusky brow in concern, muttering in an undertone as they ran hand in hand. “I did see someone, when you were rendered insensible and I was wandering about seeking help. I talked with her, even watched her; I thought she was paying tribute. She promised to find you aid but never returned...”

“Who, Fiona?” Archie asked breathlessly.

But she did not answer: Fiona halted in her tracks as they crossed the threshold of the modest parlor, and Archie was sure he spotted a ghost lounging upon the loveseat. Upon further assessment, he realized it was merely a dress, white as pure snow and made of the most ethereal and delicate of silks and velvet, accompanied by a veil of fine lace, all arranged as if it were a living entity reclining upon the cushions. Then he noticed that Fi had gone as pale as the gown itself.

“That was to be my wedding gown,” she managed to choke out.

“But, my dear,” came a deep, imposing voice from the armchair beside the hearth. The tall, noble figure of Lady Virginia Cassaday stood and faced them, the fire casting her face into shadows, half of flame and half of darkness; a strange and frightening dichotomy. Her large, painted mouth was set in a sad smile, while her usually soft eyes held such a gleam of lunacy that all who looked upon her took an involuntary step backwards. “It is still your wedding gown,” she spoke with a touch of a mad laugh, “and is your wedding night. The night you will be forever joined with my Declan.”


	5. Chapter 5

The grinding of the gears as they turned over within the old grandfather clock, preparing to set in motion the chiming mechanism, sounded unnaturally loud to Horatio’s ear; each click was magnified as he imagined the cogs grating together as they slowly circulated. He placed a hand on Bram’s shoulder and squeezed gently to capture his attention.

“The windows and the door,” Horatio urged him quietly, never taking his eyes from Lady Virginia.

“You’re a bit unsettled, aren’t you?” Archie said evenly, moving in a semicircle around the Cassaday matriarch towards the stack of jack-o’-lanterns, furtively shielding Bram’s action, drawing notice away from the boy. The clock cycled through its first melodic peal heralding the quarter-hour.

“Unsettled?” Lady Virginia scoffed airily. “Is it so unsettled for a mother to grieve for her son, to long for his company and to love him? To want him returned to me? And I knew I could do it, after the misfortune with my papa all those years ago.”

“Five years, mama,” Katie whispered hoarsely. The clock reached the hour and began its steady monotonous chime counting out the hours. “It’s been five years. Do you remember it? Do you remember death’s breath? Do you remember me languishing in bed, fading, wasting. I was nearly dead. We buried half the village that year. Do you remember now?”

“But that is the thing, my sweet little Katherine,” Lady Virginia laughed breathlessly. “I know now how to succeed after that unfortunate mishap. To take something back,” she clenched her fist passionately to her breast, “we must give something in return. An offering...”

“A sacrifice, more like!” protested Horatio, backing up against the door and securing the bolts. Bram crawled between his feet with a jack-o’-lantern in each hand and one settled into the crook of his arm; he placed them on the threshold as the clock struck nine, ten, eleven, twelve. The reverberation of the bell echoed in the stillness, ringing in their ears like a death knell until the chime was long over. A crescendo of smashing glass shattered the spell and a series of thuds and thumpings fell heavily upon the floor; it seemed to be coming from all around them, they were truly surrounded. “How many have they taken this night, do you think?”

“What does it matter,” shrugged Virginia dismissively. “My Declan is worth all of them and more. They’re useless, the lot of them: ungrateful insurgents, superstitious peasants; a pathetic rabble squandering the simple yet precious gift of life. My Declan was on officer in His Royal Majesty’s service, he was a noteworthy man.”

She looked imploringly to Fiona, “I thought at least you would understand, you who loved him as much as I.” She seemed to falter for a moment. “But you proved false. You didn’t believe strongly enough, you didn’t love him strongly enough.” Her eyes were hollow, empty as she stared into the distance.

“But he loved you,” Virginia continued oblivious to the desperate looks exchanged by all present as the soughing of the dead filled the hallway just outside the all too insubstantial parlor door. “And now you can prove yourself worthy of his love.”

“You want to give her to them, don’t you?” Archie asked aghast, shielding Fiona with his body.

“Actually,” Horatio said solemnly, “I think the plan was to give us over. For Miss Wheaton,” he let his glare fall upon the dress for a moment before returning it quickly to Lady Virginia, “I think the fate she had in store was one rather more disturbing. Just so we understand each other: you do know you’re insane, don’t you?”

“It’s relative,” Lady Virginia gave an unconcerned heave of her shoulders.

“Mama!” It was Irene who spoke, the incontrovertible authority in her voices nearly shaking the house to its rafters. “You stop this immediately! What terrible nonsense this all is, and look where it’s gotten us! We all loved Declan, but he is gone and as tragic as the loss is, nothing we can do can bring him back to us. These things, these ungodly creatures, they are but husks of the people we knew. Now cease this foolishness at once!” She punctuated each word with the full force of her natural, absolute influence.

“I think I’m beginning to understand what you see in her,” Archie whispered to his brother, suitably impressed. “You are outnumbered, Lady Virginia,” he said softly, diplomatically, as he refocused his attention upon the imposing matriarch. “And we are safe in here until the dawn. Please do not do anything you will regret; recover your senses and shun this ignominy. Join us, help us defend this shelter.”

“Mama?” said Katie beseechingly.

Lady Virginia was silent for a moment and it might have only have been Horatio’s hopeful imagination, but he believed she had been reconsidering. And then the knock sounded upon the door, steady like the slow beating of a drum, and their blood collectively froze. Instinctively, they all knew whom it was asking entrance. Time seemed to stop; even the ticking of the clock could not be heard over the thunderous thrum of Horatio’s heart in his chest. He took Katie’s hand, squeezing it gently.

“Never!” screeched Virginia suddenly, shocking them all with the unexpectedness and resolve of her tone. “I’ll never give up on Declan! I’ll never allow him to leave again!”

There was a pistol in her hand but she was so far past the point of rational thought that she held it by the barrel and raised it above her head as a cudgel as she ran at them, towards the door. Horatio, Archie and James all responsively reached for the weapons that would normally hang at their hips, only to remember that they were in fancy dress. Everything slowed in Horatio’s vision; he felt helpless, vulnerable, and he hated the sensation.

He braced himself to meet her head on; she was admittedly a large woman, but it would be an uneven fight nonetheless and Horatio had never struck a woman before. He jumped as something crashed into Virginia’s face and she toppled backwards to the floor. He looked down at Bram who was standing now by his side; turning his gaze back upon Lady Cassaday’s sprawled form, pieces of a smashed jack-o’-lantern lying about her head.

“Sorry, Mam,” murmured Bram glumly.

“She’s going to be sorry for it on the morn,” Archie commented soberly.

“If we live to see the morn,” Katie responded with identical solemnity as she looked over her shoulder to the door. She swallowed hard. “If they break in, they will take us all. The jack-o’-lanterns at the door, are you sure they will work? The rhyme speaks only of windows, and those defenses have already been breeched.”

“They used candles at the mausoleum to keep the ghouls in,” Horatio reasoned. “It holds that we can use the same to prevent them from entering.” He put his arm about Katie’s shoulders and led her to the fireside, bundling her into an armchair beside the remaining heap of carved gourds; her frail body trembled and gave small, involuntary retches at the horrid stench that was beginning to overtake them.

“How do we know the verse is correct about the windows?” Bram asked, sitting at Katie’s feet and hugging his knees to his chest, and Horatio thought he looked very much his mere eleven years of age; it was easy to forget sometimes--most of the time--that, for all of his intellect and plain speaking, he was just a boy after all.

“We take it on faith,” Katie placed her hand on her younger brother’s shoulder warmly, enclosing the crucifix that hung from her neck in the fingers of her other.

“Well, in case faith decides to be on the fickle side, help me barricade the windows,” James said, trying not to glance at the clear panes as they rattled beneath the unrelenting assault of the creatures outside, mercifully hidden in shadow. Irene gave him an affectionate smile before taking charge of the entire operation, ordering the others about.

Only Fiona remained standing on the threshold, staring at the parlor door. “Come away from there,” Archie told her tenderly, taking her hand in his and attempting to lead her away; she remained unmoving. “Love, listen to me,” he urged softly. “Come sit with us by the hearth.”

“Is it truly him?” she asked in a voice so small it was barely a whisper, her gaze riveted upon the shadow that could be seen in the thin gap between the door and floor. “It is, it is Declan, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” Archie said unequivocally, taking her by the shoulders and leading her towards the sitting area. Against Archie’s wishes, she sat upon the loveseat beside her intended wedding gown. Reluctantly, he left her to assist his brother in his efforts, speaking to the room at large, “From the sound of it, every other room but ours has been invaded; I’d be willing to put my faith in the authenticity of the rhyme.”

“What of the others, Sissy?” Bram inquired of Katie apprehensively. “What of Papa? He was upstairs in the nursery telling the younger ones bedtime tales when it began to happen; do you think Uncle Eamon and the rest found him? If the rest of the house has been infested, are they in danger?” Katie looked imploringly to Horatio, her lips pursed.

Horatio was being entreated to speak words of reassurance to the young man not as an image of adult authority but in the manner of a caring relation, almost, dare he even think it, in a paternal way. It filled him with a curious, unfamiliar glow of pride; of course they would have a family and that Katie already had confidence in him enough to see the comfort of a father figure he could provide. He knelt beside Bram.

“They’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

Knowing Bram was an unusually sensible and clever creature, he explained further, “Moving to higher ground was a smart move tactically: Those...devils, or the majority of them, will search the ground floor first, especially if they are alert to our presence. They will start to climb the stair gradually, search the next floor up and so on, but the others, they bought themselves precious time by ascending, time to barricade themselves well. Is the nursery on the second storey?” Bram nodded. “See then, they’d have two floors to climb; meanwhile, you’re father will be shrewd enough to fasten himself down well before they even come across him. Your kin are all quite cunning; no doubt they had all of this in mind when they broke from our group.”

Bram nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “So they...sort of used us as bait?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, precisely,” Horatio cleared his throat. “It was an unintentional boon to their plan that I’m sure they considered. We had made up our minds as to our destination and that happened to strengthen aspects of their own strategy.”

Bram smiled brightly then, both at the knowledge gained and Horatio’s straightforward reasoning with him. “Oh, good,” he breathed through a grin, plainly much more at ease than he had been.

“And what will happen when those fiends out there do not get a proper offering?” Fiona said, her brow furrowed deeply with worry, her thumbnail lodged between her front teeth. “This is not but one night of woe and come dawn, it will be ended. If I understand correctly, they will visit plague and privation upon this house, this entire hamlet. I think it’s safe to say that whatever it is they wanted, they thought they’d find it at Curraghgowen Hall.”

Katie looked away uncomfortably. “I don’t want to be ill again,” she confessed guiltily.

“No!” Archie asserted. “No, most definitely not! I know what is in your mind, and I will not allow you to commit a senseless act of literal self-sacrifice! I simply will not hear of it.”

Fiona was running her hand along the delicate silk of her would-be wedding frock. “Would it truly be so senseless if it spared the lives of so many who would suffer?” She turned her head to the door, to that unfaltering shadow lurking beneath it, motionless as the grave. “He’s still there. He’s not going to leave. Declan always did want someone to look after him; I guess that desire did not subside even in death.”

“We have already resolved this matter,” Irene told her decisively. “We do not surrender anyone to those fiends, least of all you. We are a family and we stay together, through thick and through thin.”

“Yes,” Fiona nodded wretchedly, her stare fixed upon the door still. “And I trust that he believes so as well.”

“How long do we wait?” a young woman in the crowd inquired, listening with hands thrown over ears to the constant sound of the eerie moans that resonated from more than one hundred mouldering throats. “Does the rhyme say when they’ll leave?”

“We’re guessing dawn,” a middle-aged man answered, “but we have no real way of knowing, do we, son?” He looked to Horatio who silently shook his head. The clock struck one and, without speaking, faces grim with desperation and determination, all settled in for the long wait, huddling in a group about the hearth and cluster of jack-o’-lanterns. Many clutched their rosary beads to their chests while an older gent, a distant cousin of Katie’s, had begun reading aloud, reciting from the Bible:

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death; I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”

It was half till two when they heard the shuffling and sweeping of dragging footfalls upon the ceiling; the creatures were searching the rooms of the first floor, possibly the second and top. There was no way of knowing if they had found the second group of refugees.

Come three o’clock, the presence of the monsters seemed to reach its height; the pounding escalated to a fever pitch, the stench was near on unbearable and the groaning, the groaning was enough to unnerve the most hardened heart. With their sheer numbers, they were able to break through one of the windows but between Bram’s jack-o’-lantern and Irene’s barricade, none were able to pass over the sill. The door was in a worse state, the hinges beginning to buckle, the wood warping beneath their bony fists.

“The Devil’s time,” Katie stated, glancing at the clock as it struck quarter after. “’Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ No wonder they’re in a frenzy.”

Horatio perched upon the arm of the chair she sat in, awkwardly patting her on the arm, a loving is clumsy gesture; she rested her cheek against his sleeve.

“I willed her to leave, Horatio,” she confessed in an undertone, glancing at Fiona. “I wanted her to give herself to them. I still do. I’m scared of what will happen. God help me, I don’t want to be ill again. God forgive me. God forgive me,” she repeated, burying her face in the wool of his dress jacket.

Horatio could offer her no absolution. He himself wondered if it had truly been a mercy to spare Fiona when so many more were at risk because of the decision. Miss Wheaton was sweet if a bit morbid, and Archie was clearly fond of her, but was her one life worth the neglecting the good of the many. He supposed he would have to start making similar choices as he rose in rank; he wondered if it became easier or more natural.

Half past four in the morning and Archie observed, “They’re easing up a bit. Dawn isn’t so far off now; perhaps they have to be back in the grave before the first light, maybe they’ve just gotten discouraged.”

“They’re leaving?” Bram yelped hopefully, coming awake; he had been dozing against Katie’s legs.

“Perhaps they’ve been satisfied,” Fiona muttered sullenly. The shadow at the door remained, standing steadfast. “How many lives would that take, do you think?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, but ’twixt the balefires and the church, I’m sure’n as the villagers be safe, Miss,” Farmer O’Shea piped up, renewed faith bolstering him and his words.

Lady Virginia groaned, holding her head blearily; Bram had seen to it that she had been as comfortable as possible after her fall, placing a pillow beneath her head and shoulders and covering her with a blanket. She’d taken a nasty bump the size of an egg to her scalp just below the crown and above the neck when she had hit the floor. Truthfully, Horatio had been a bit relieved for her lack of consciousness; her ranting had already worn thin to his ears before Bram had thrown his jack-o’-lantern at her.

“Where is my boy?” she asked groggily as Irene ran to her side, helping her unsteadily to her feet. “He hasn’t gone, has he? Where is my Declan? We must let him in before it is too late.”

“Oh, that same old song, is it?” Archie scoffed under his breath. It had become jarringly quiet after the assault of the past few hours: the storm had passed and so too were the foul creatures, little by little. Yet the shadow at the door persisted. Lady Virginia saw it and smiled with only a ghost of a heartwarming manner; a homecoming greeting should have been the most beautiful and touching thing to a man of the service but Horatio found it uncomfortable and slightly deranged.

The clock began its steady clime to the chime of the five o’clock hour as Lady Virginia lunged for the door; she would not be persuaded otherwise, despite the men’s best efforts to impede her progress. She threw the door open, a half-crazed look of elated anticipation upon her distinguished features. Her face fell instantly and she crumbled to her knees when the light from the parlor revealed that the shadow was naught but a formal naval uniform jacket, one much like Declan had been buried in.

“No,” she cried, lifting the garment to her face and sobbing into it. “No, no, no! I couldn’t have come this close only to lose him again!”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Looking at it, you’d hardly know anything was amiss,” Horatio observed as he and Katie stood outside the mausoleum, watching as the men of the village secured the doors once more. He was correct: looking now at the ancient stone building and its adjacent memorial park, one would hardly guess at the mischief that was wrought the night before; gone were the wayward coffins strewing the lawns, the tears in the sod where the creatures had rent free of their resting places. “Apparently, the dead neaten up after themselves,” he said with a levity he did not feel in his heart.

“Remembrance of the night past will soon enough make itself known,” Katie responded quietly, pulling her shawl closer about her shoulders. “At least the village was spared; the light from the church kept those restless dead within their tombs and the bonfires were enough to ward off the onslaught out in the countryside.”

“How fares your mother?” Horatio asked gently, resting a hand upon her arm.

“She rests now,” said Katie, turning her face in to the wind as if it might blow away the remnants of the night before like so much dust. “Papa is by her side; he says she speaks as if delirious with fever. He doubts she will remember much of what happened or of her own part in it when she is recovered from the shock.”

It was more than she deserved, Horatio thought but did not voice this opinion. How could he in good conscience pass judgment upon the woman when she was sick of the brain and had family to look after; he would not deprive a young boy such as Bram of a mother, no matter her condition.

“The servants that assisted her, what has become of them?”

“Gone,” Katie told him wistfully. “Oh, not by any supernatural means,” she clarified when he raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Their rooms were cleared out, their possessions gone. For the better, I think.”

“And what of Miss Wheaton?” he inquired softly.

“Fiona is leaving for the Continent,” she informed him. “She has no more ties here; I rather think she’s looking to make a new start of things.” She tsked. “It will break Lieutenant Kennedy’s heart to bits. Has she told him yet, do you suppose?”

Horatio nodded slowly. “He wanted some time to himself; I granted it him. He’s been seated by the pond near on an hour now.”

“It will take time to mend,” she said, “for us all. Some things, they’re just never meant to be, Horatio; last night proved that in gruesome detail. There are worlds beyond this one, times outside of our own; we must trust that all happens for a reason, even if we do not understand. We must have faith.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
**One Year Later**

 _To Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower,_  
_HMS Renown_

_It is with the greatest sorrow that I write to you to inform you of the passing of my dearest sister, Katherine. She was stricken by fever soon after we found the well water to be afflicted with a taint; we know not if this is the cause. Many were badly ailed, such as my brother, Abraham, who thankfully recovered. Katherine was poorly weakened and mercifully succumbed quickly. I hope you take comfort in the knowledge that her final thoughts were of you and your return to Curraghgowen. She will be laid to rest in the family crypt come summer’s end; we hope you are able to attend the memorial service._

_Yours sincerely,_  
_Mrs. James Kennedy’_

Horatio folded the missive, its creases already beginning to separate from the wear it had gotten. He placed it in the breast pocket of his jacket beside the last message he had received from Katie, a love letter than had gone unanswered. He’d meant to reply, he truly had, but his duties always seemed to draw him away; a new captain, a new ship to adapt to. He simply hadn’t had the time to think on such things. Now it seemed he had all the time in the world.

He stood on the steps of the mausoleum at Curraghgowen gazing at the heavy doors. Candlelight flickered a brilliant sanguine glow in the failing dusk, and a storm was rising on the horizon. There was no full moon to illuminate the lawns, only a waning crescent rapidly being enshrouded by the heavy gray clouds. Horatio looked to his companion; a tall woman of noble bearing stood beside him serenely, her hands folded calmly at her waist.

Lady Virginia Cassaday nodded coolly; Horatio returned the gesture. He understood now. Leaning forward he pursed his mouth, inhaling deeply and releasing a forceful rush of breath over the candles.

Their light wavered and died, leaving only the darkness.

**The End**  



End file.
